On Wednesday, December 18th at 7:30 p.m., Penduline will welcome local writers to its holiday Festival of Quickwrites. These are readings of stories written on the fly by students in Ariel Gore’s Literary Kitchen as well as by other talented Portland-area writers and poets. Featuring Nina Rockwell, Jenny Forrester, Emily Newberry, Jessica Starr, Temple Lentz, Bonnie Ditlevsen, Jennifer Fulford, and possible others.

Start the New Year with some hilarious standup! Whitney Johnson of the Brody Theater will be hosting a Standup/Open Mic on Wednesday, January 8th, at 7:30 p.m.

Common Grounds serves craft beers and wine as well as delicious grilled sandwiches, soups, salads, coffees, teas and sweets.

]]>http://www.pendulinepress.com/uncategorized/best-of-the-net-2013-nominees/feed/0The Winnerhttp://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/the-winner/
http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/the-winner/#commentsMon, 16 Sep 2013 04:35:16 +0000http://www.pendulinepress.com/?post_type=author_article&p=2929He’s the tree. I’m a vine climbing to the crown. He needed to mention outsourcing only once before I knew the lay of the land. I went to the Bigs, who believe that the heft in the wallets makes them omniscient. My talent is finding an obsession and agreeing. It’s amazing how guys with the world at their feet need approval. I lay it on thick until my antennae find another hobby horse to ride. The key is the hallway bull sessions, coffee break chats, and small talk at the urinals.]]>
When I asked Dan the Vice President of Advanced Technology if winning was everything, he smiled with that gleam of superiority so common among achievers and said, “No. But then again, what else is there?”
He’s the tree. I’m a vine climbing to the crown. He needed to mention outsourcing only once before I knew the lay of the land. I went to the Bigs, who believe that the heft in the wallets makes them omniscient. My talent is finding an obsession and agreeing. It’s amazing how guys with the world at their feet need approval. I lay it on thick until my antennae find another hobby horse to ride. The key is the hallway bull sessions, coffee break chats, and small talk at the urinals. If they’re done right, conferences are a formality. At the next status meeting, where project managers were grilled in excruciating detail about the gadgets their teams designed, I was put in charge of Korean outsourcing. They’re lollipops. War heroes are lollipops. I’m a winner.
The assembly equipment required to make our factory automation amplifier wasn’t available in Korea, so the unit would have to be redesigned to conform to our sister company’s capabilities. I put Clarence, a brilliant whiteboard jargoneer, in charge. Through the grapevine I heard that he spent most of his time on a new communication protocol for Dan and let his technician design and build the prototype. The only thing that matters is the politics. Everything else is for losers.
The three of us flew to Korea with the hardware. I was tired after the twenty-six-hour flight, so I arranged for the General Manager to take Clarence and me golfing while our technician wired the unit. In an hour I had the Big and his chief engineer eating out of my hand. Slants were spoiled rotten by their mothers, so they consider the rest of the world rivals for her affection. All I had to do was knock other people and wait for the big smile. That told me I had found a favorite enemy. Koreans hate Japs, so putting down Sony broke the ice. When we returned to the plant, tanned and relaxed, the prototype was a smoking ruin.
I did my job. The tech didn’t do his. After we returned to Boston, I informed the Bigs that the Koreans were convinced they could create a unit identical to the old one, without a working model. Dan pushed through a requisition to purchase six amplifiers. All would have been well if the tech hadn’t opened his mouth about our golfing trip. He claimed that he had done all the work, while Clarence and I were window dressing. I went to his boss and demanded that the man be fired. Rule One: Never leave an enemy behind you. The manager told me a sad story that the tech had been with the company for five years and his wife was expecting twins. A winner gets results, not excuses. I sent him a memo pointing out that I was Dan’s right hand man and if personnel integrity wasn’t maintained in his department, funding would be cut. The following week, the tech was gone.
There’s always plenty to do for a man who can get close to the right people. For six months I was busy running Dan’s pet project, which he was convinced would revolutionize the process control industry. I feed on zeal like a shark on meat. In my spare time I took my ATV to Maine, where I own land with some gorgeous lakes. Rumbling through the woods mashing down saplings, I felt that nothing could stand in my way.
When the Korean amplifiers arrived, they sailed through Incoming Inspection. In order to put them into production, I needed approval from the software eggheads. They reported that at a particular speed with a particular load, the new units had two percent less power than the U.S. version. I got Dan to bombard them with memos, complaining that the difference was insignificant. The chief egg replied with some bullshit that because you couldn’t predict at what motion the lower power would cause a failure, the devices could bring a billion-dollar production line to a halt. The company had acquired six very expensive paperweights.
I learned from that experience. Concentrate on your reports and put off producing anything as long as possible. When our stock crashed and the corporation was gobbled up by a crosstown rival, Dan brought me in as Director of New Initiatives. In the five years I’ve been there, I learned the mindset of the Bigs. They make an insane amount of money, and the only thing that can prevent them from collecting is a major mistake. Every time I said “What if?” I added six months to the schedule. My group has never built production hardware. Making things is for suckers. Winners climb trees.
]]>http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/the-winner/feed/0Tomasz Kowalhttp://www.pendulinepress.com/art-article-archives/tomasz-kowal/
http://www.pendulinepress.com/art-article-archives/tomasz-kowal/#commentsMon, 16 Sep 2013 04:14:29 +0000http://www.pendulinepress.com/?post_type=art_article&p=3007

I’m done with mirrors and scales and trips
to the bathroom at dinnertime. No more diets. No more doctors.

My ribs only show because that’s where flesh
has fallen like good beef off the bone.

I had to feed another starving mouth before I could be born,
he caught me in the parking garage—
a small price to pay to eat without regret,
to gorge on dogs and alley-cats and slow children—
I’m not picky.
If there’s a pulse, that brilliant beat,
it means the meat is hot on the go.
And I’m fast.
I ran track in high school,
skinny legs carrying my feather light frame.

All I need is for you to trip, to stumble like baby antelopes.
All I need is one good bite,
one careless limb and then my nails are in your back,
your chest, digging for the darkest parts of you,
the little overlooked muscles,
the ones you don’t even know you’re using
when you sleep and run and fuck—they taste the sweetest.

And when I bite off your fingers, pick my teeth with your bones
I’m not looking for approval.
I know the blood rolling down my chin is sexy.
I don’t care if you’d touch a girl like me.

]]>http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/zombie-girl/feed/0Two Good Drillshttp://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/two-good-drills/
http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/two-good-drills/#commentsMon, 16 Sep 2013 03:50:53 +0000http://www.pendulinepress.com/?post_type=author_article&p=2948
His grip on the trigger tightened and he shuffled slightly on the hay where he had sat since midnight. Sure enough, the noise he had heard didn’t end with the hedge crossing. It was now making its way through the wet part of the bottom field and boots could be clearly heard slugging through the mud, phut, phut, phut.
“Sure didn’t Red Pat lose all his electric fences and two good drills, not to mention his old Turnip Mangle was carried clean out of the yard,” Myles O’Reilly said, hands folded tight under his arms, thumbs sticking up and a rolled-up copy of the Sunday Independent in his jacket pocket.
“Pat Malone below at the forge lost three ewes. And them in lamb,” Larkin the Postman added.
“Sure didn’t Sean O’Meara say he seen lads driving round in a white van and reckons its them travellers from within in town that’s at it,” Old Naughton said, lighting his pipe through a leathery cupped hand.

He thought about using the phone. No. No snotty-nosed Guards were going to get politically correct with this solution. This is the way it’s going to end. He remembered how three years earlier he had had the young local guard around and explained the situation to him.
“Garda John Duffy,” he said, hand out, having knocked at the unused front door of the house.
“Call me John,” he added over a cup of tea.
I’ll tell ya what,” James told the guard, “the last person to use that front door was me Father. An he was within in a pine box!”
James remembered how he had never met a man with such clean nails and soft handshake. How he dipped his biscuit into his cup and sat cross legged. How he spoke with some sort of accent that wasn’t from anywhere.
“At least he can kick a ball,” Red Pat had said after the charity match below at the cross.
“He can that,” the regulars sang back.
James remembered how the guard had said that he was to call them to deal with any situation where he thought he had trespassers and that he mustn’t take the law into his own hands. He remembered thinking how little this young fella knew about the ways of the world and how he was probably from a town family, reared in some warm semi-detached estate with a soccer pitch, swimming club and the dinner in the evening.
“And sure what would a towny fecker like him know about the ways of the country,” they laughed up at the bar in Mulligan’s. “Sure he probably never spent a day stackin turf or savin hay.”
His mind raced. All the horror stories that he heard outside mass came flying through him like arrows, each one sharper than the last, cutting as they passed. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.

The engraved lock plate and walnut stock caressed his palms as the moon came out from behind a night cloud. The spidery shadows along the lane moved on the ground and a timid breeze camouflaged small sounds. Then a loud clack, as rust barbed wire broke free from a knotted fence post. It was getting nearer alright.
He looked slowly around the darkness where he sat and could just make out the shape of the red Raleigh Twenty that his sister Brenda had fallen from and broken her wrist that summer before their Father died. He spied the old kitchen table with the leg cracked and mended by a piece of old pine just nailed to the inside of it. The same table where his Mother had sewn together the belly of their little brown mongrel, Susie, after the milk lorry hit her one morning. He could still see the check table cloth with the red stain on it and his Father’s best razor lying full of thick brown dog hair. An old basin that once stood proud in his Grandmother’s kitchen had stagnant water in it from the twins filling it with tadpoles during the summer months when Davy was home from London.
The moon disappeared.

Then a movement across the yard. Definite. Strong and sure, with little care for gentleness. He stepped up from the hay and followed the double barrels out through the shed door. Across the yard stood a hulking mass of shadow against the concrete.
“I thought I got rid of ye Bastards last night,” James called, in the blueness of the night light.
“I thought a cartridge in the back would be enough to keep ye off me land,” he added.
The mass of flesh was loping toward him, bubbling from its mouth. The moon jumped out and lit the scene and he could see that it was in fact the traveller that he had shot the previous night and dumped in the ditch at the bottom field. He was badly damaged and dirty and he had trouble moving.
“What in the name of Jesus?” James uttered.
The broken jaw of the fleshy mass moved and James felt the blood leaving his head while his heart pounded to get out of his chest.
“I’ll not harm you Boss,” the thing gurgled. “I’ll not take only a few minutes of yer time.”
The moon retreated again and James thought the darkness would end him.
“At least I tried, Daddy, at least I tried,” he said to himself breathlessly.
“Bring me into yer home, Sir, and I’ll say me piece and lave ya to yerself,” the thing said, a foot dragging.

James sat at the kitchen table and downed the Jameson in one shot. At the other end sat a large man with red hair and alabaster skin, a flock a freckles around his nose. His hair was matted and had twigs and grass entwined in it and his clothes were covered in a mud blood mix. He had a huge wound to his left side and parts of him hung from it like rotting fruit in a good year, wasp food.
“Now Sir. Last night I came here from inside in the town with the intention of looking around to see if there was anything that I could carry off with me. I was looking for small stuff, drills and sanders and the like. I know that men like yourself have this sort of stuff hanging around in sheds and that it’s easy pickins.”
James frowned and wondered if this was some sort of breakdown he was having. How could this flesh be talking to him? He had seen with his own eyes that he had fatally wounded the giant and had dumped him over the wall into the drain. His back was still sore from the work he had put in trying to lift and push the mass over that wall while trying to keep his shotgun close. He had checked the corpse to make sure it was without life. Not a breath came out of the thing he had left in the field.
“So,” the thing continued, “when I came in here last night you merely saw me as someone who was after your stuff. The stuff that you gained through hard work and caution. Stuff that was rightfully yours and that you had the right to defend. I was on your land and you felt that you had the right to protect it to the point of taking my life. We both knew the facts and both took our chances last night.”
The thing at the other end of the kitchen table reached down and slowly picked up the small glass of whiskey. It placed it to its lips and started to try to drink. A terrible noise filled the quiet kitchen as it drank.
Both men went silent.
James remembered his Father’s last words inside in St. Vincent’s that day so long ago, when adulthood was thrust upon him, a mere schoolboy on the Friday but head of the house by Sunday. When his sisters and Mother wept strong tears and he sat silent and pale. When his old Church learning left him and made a void. A void to be filled with work and football and dinner and whatever chat was going around the mart. When the privileges of being the eldest boy came home to roost.
“Anyway, you found me and blew a hole in my chest with that lovely old shotgun of yours and I fell in your laneway. You dumped what remained of me over the small wall and went off to bed. I suppose that my part in all this should have ended there. It didn’t though, and I found meself sort of awake lying in the ditch. I lay there not really feeling alive, dead but awake. After a while I discovered that I could move a bit and slowly I got the power to lift meself out of the drain and up here.”
“But. But why? Why me?” James blurted, avoiding the dead eyes.
“Now Boss. You know the answer to that. If you really try you can work that one out.”
“So after I got out of the drain, I said to mesel, I’ll go up there and chat yer man and see if we can’t work something out before I head off. Maybe have some sort of talk about what happened to see if we would do something different the next time.”

James’ mind struggled to engage with the sounds and visual information he was receiving. He recalled his cousin Martin acting odd and saying stuff about “the others” when he was in his teens. No one paid much heed until poor old Martin started standing up in Mass and blurting out stuff about living a lie, and, all the phoney’s that were sat there in the church with their Sunday suits and big hats and shiny cars. Poor Uncle Andy had to do something then, much to Aunt Maggie’s scorn.

The mass at the end of the table took in a deep and horrendous gurgling breath before continuing.
“Now I have five childer below on the site and they have no Daddy no more.”
“You still have your drills and all, and they have nothing.”
“That’s not really a fair deal now is it?” the traveller said.
“No. I suppose it’s not,” James replied, pouring more whiskey.
“I don’t have any kids meself but me brother has three that he brings over here every summer for a couple of weeks and Lord knows I do look forward to that bit o life around the place. The only thing that does be breathing around here the rest of the time is them twelve bullocks up there in that byre.”
“What can I do about this?” James asked of his guest, now whiskey calm.
“Well, Sir, I want you to let people know the stupid way you think about things. The stupid way of protecting something that is really worthless, by taking something that is, well, priceless. I want you to tell your story to as many people as possible. Let them all know about me and what a poor price you placed on my life and the happiness and future of my children. Tell them that you lay awake at night thinking, and that if you were born into the world that I was born into, then you’d probably be doing exactly the same thing as me. Therefore you and me are the same really, bar the chance of birth. Tell them that.”
“And if the Law says you did no wrong, then you look at your heart and tell the real truth of the matter. Tell them that.”

]]>http://www.pendulinepress.com/art-features/marian-fountain/feed/0Ego Sideroadhttp://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/ego-sideroad/
http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/ego-sideroad/#commentsMon, 16 Sep 2013 02:20:05 +0000http://www.pendulinepress.com/?post_type=author_article&p=2946
I won the lottery. At eight in the morning I went to the official Lotto webpage for the results and laid the ticket on my desk, smoothed its perimeter flat with the back of my hand and smudged two lines of numbers with my moist finger tips. I looked twice to make sure I wasn’t using numbers from last week’s draw and then I smeared a lime green highlighter on the ticket as I matched the numbers. By the sixth matching number, when my winnings were already over seventy-eighty thousand dollars, the rivulets of water running down my fingers were dangerously close to washing away the last and necessary digits. At the precise moment of my financial transformation, the possibility arose that there was a God who superseded the mere mathematical laws created by the hubris of humans and I suspended my agnosticism to bow a grateful prayer of thanks. I had won forty million dollars and figured I could donate a half million to the Salvation Army as a deflective action to appease the martyred saints I had prayed to.

I wasn’t a man in a grey flannel suit working at a desiccating job, or struggling to support a family and pay bills. My career in advertising was contrived coolness and I earned a nice six figures, but I felt locked in a struggle between truth and lies. I wrote the taglines for large corporations; I was the man who pulled people into the products. Friends thought my job was sexy, inventive and cortically inspired while their positions in the Ministry of Tourism or Education forever excluded them from the creative class. The company for which I worked kept a perpetually stocked bar that yielded Manhattans and Boxcars, and Mr. Overstreet, the agency czar, had bestowed a cappuccino maker that created foam and froth too light for heaven, and the stature of the firm, defined by the dollar value of the latest accounts and the size of the billboards glowing along the Gardiner Expressway, or the number of martinis imbibed at self-congratulatory swanky parties at the Gladstone Hotel, was going up. My six-digit income surpassed all my university contemporaries, but I wanted wealth that yielded uncompromising freedom and choices without constraints. I craved the kind of wealth that would push me into the upper margins of the upper quintile of income distribution, right into the monetary stratosphere.

Winning isn’t luck, but acute mathematical analysis that eludes a million players. I kept track of the lottery statistics and waited two years before I saw a pattern emerge. The numbers 7, 15, 28 and 39 were less frequent and I decided that this discrepancy would eventually correct itself. If you flip a penny thirty times and twenty eight heads appear, you can pretty much assume that the next flip will be a tail. I bought a hundred tickets and distributed my selections around the four special numbers, trying to capture as many possibilities that the cost of two bottles of 1979 Mosstowie Highland Scotch could purchase.

I made allowances for my incipient wealth. A man who plans to win forty million dollars should deport himself in a certain manner. What I earned in advertising allowed me some measure of refinement in clothing, cars, food, culture and sports; the money that was soon to come from the lottery corporation demanded that I raise the bar.

I constructed a list of “items for immediate purchase after lottery” and another list of “things to say to various people after lottery”. You’ve got to pinpoint what is important in life and I like to organize my goals.

My list of purchases included: a Gucci Duffle Bag with identification tags and double zip enclosure ($2,550) for carrying overnight needs to various women’s condos; a four-door Mercedes CLS ($110,000) to proclaim my wealth in speed and style; and a Ferrari Scuderia Rattrappante steel watch ($10,200) for knowing when it’s time to ask a woman to leave. I then constructed a list of things to say: to Mr. Washburn (Senior Account Executive), “I never liked you, Sir”; to Denise (who sat beside me at work), “Maybe you didn’t want to date me before today, but you will now, and my answer is no”; and to my girlfriend (whom I’ve dated for six months and slept with 53 times), “You can do better.”

My resignation from the agency was swift: I arrived at work on Monday morning at nine-thirty and quit by nine-forty. I left everything behind, even the bottle of scotch in the desk. “References not needed” I told Washburn. I dispatched my girlfriend in a terse text message.

Anonymity is impossible with the money I’d won. I followed all the recommended steps to beat back the desperate hordes that were going to beg, plead and try to steal my winnings, but the Internet was awash in images and stories about me and for the first two weeks after securing the money in multiple accounts and investment vehicles, I stayed home.

In the marketplace of love and lust, old rich men trade wealth for young pretty women and then acquire an even younger mistress on the side. I was rich, was asymptotically approaching fifty years of age, and desired a woman who fully understood her own mercenary ambitions. I thought speed dating might offer me an unexpurgated view of such women, all hungry for a comfortable life or an unending carnival of pleasures.

I paid a hundred bucks to attend a speed dating evening at a Yorkville restaurant. I’d read that every man has the ability to judge beauty on a subliminal level, even as quickly as a fraction of a second. Eye contact would let me detect the size of her limbal ring, a sure marker of age and vitality. The restaurant was in a census division for Toronto that contained an unusually high average income and the odds were favourable that I’d meet a woman who earned over a hundred thousand a year, just enough to treat themselves twice a year to clothes from Holt’s.

Speed dating ten women when you only want one of them is like eating vegetables before dessert. I had to get through nine women, nine varieties of potatoes, carrots, beets, all of them root vegetables, before I could taste the crème brûlée. Amanda (an underpaid magazine editorial assistant), Molly (a decorator whose unfortunate portfolio was in Toronto’s classless neighbourhoods), and Missy (the name bespoke an asexual and spoiled girl) were amongst the first five women. I repeated the topics, same lines, went through the motions. Girl number five was pretty, but her sweater from Sears announced a lack of hedonism or carnal awareness; I wanted the woman at the end of the queue who had dirty blonde hair, thin arms, and a waist around which I could link knuckles. She wore a tight red shirt, buttoned corset-like, that accentuated positive breasts, pin stripe pants, and three-inch conservative heels on patent-leather squared toe shoes. The crow’s feet around her eyes suggested intensity and playfulness. No one else at the table showed this degree of sexual dimorphism. No other woman looked quite as womanly as she did.

Her name was Rachel and she was a chef at a downtown restaurant. Her latest and only cookbook had been published six weeks earlier and was at the front of Indigo but heavily discounted. A cookbook is not literature so she wasn’t really an author. We had three minutes to talk and I saved my best line for her: “Did you know that mathematicians have proven that your seventh relationship is the optimal one and that the seventh person is your soul mate? I believe I might be sitting across from mine”.

“I’m not very good at math,” she replied. “I’m also not very good at love.”

“You don’t have to be good at love, or lust; just precise and deliberate.”

After six dates, four dinners, twelve cumulative hours of vigorous sex, and three weeks in total, Rachel “moved in” with me. I gave her a hundred thousand dollars to decorate the loft in any style she desired. She was nonplussed by the amount although I suspect her giddiness was contained. The lottery had never come up and I calculated that it was entirely reasonable that within Rachel’s milieu there would be no banal conversations about lotteries. More test than testament, my only stipulation was that the bed be king sized and that the sheets be made from 1000-thread-count Egyptian cotton threaded with 22 carat gold; the colour did not matter. I wanted to envelop our bodies in tangible pecuniary pleasure, but I wore a condom to protect the sheets. Rachel consulted her friend who had designed a showcase cottage for some mastermind retailer who wouldn’t live in anything less than six thousand square feet or two million dollars. The designer was improbably good looking and I had no idea if she was talented as a decorator but she did perform oral sex on me with exquisite choreography and finesse. Fidelity was never implied in the bargain with Rachel and I expected she must have known that my sexual appetite could not be satiated by one woman.

“This is your best recipe ever,” I complimented her on conjuring the finest rugs, furniture and paintings that could be bought in Toronto. I had insisted that everything be purchased within city boundaries and that my name be prominently displayed on all invoices. This, of course, was a little like limiting her to a hundred-mile diet.

My days were redolent of the Roaring Twenties, inasmuch as I could glean this from rereading The Great Gatsby. We drank and partied and dined. Rachel surprised me by never saying “I love you” or confusing coitus with companionship and I was grateful that she was becoming the perfect girlfriend for a rich man. She continued to work and I helped her promote the book (our social connections grew immensely over the following six months and I’m sure this helped her authorial status). I scoffed at any activity that was not hedonistic as I had taken a vow to do nothing useful (to anyone else) for a year. While Rachel worked at her restaurant I worked out, read biographies, kept a journal of random thoughts. In the interstices between noon cocktails at the Four Seasons and dinner out with Rachel, I’d order escorts who served me in a room I permanently reserved at the Royal York.

We continued this perfect life for nine months until Rachel started upsetting the cart (and as soon as she did this I began to imagine her as a brazen ox tugging against the weighty boxes in the cart, filled with my money). The disequilibrium she initiated also inspired me to begin examining her physical beauty, looking for measurable imperfections that, if they placed her too far away from what was reasonable, then I would have to begin the dissolution of our agreement.

“I’d like us to host a party this weekend. We need to start thinking about our plans.” This was tantamount to Brutus discussing the murder of Caesar; I’d always considered her to perfectly understand the slippery grip she had on me and that plans were reserved for dinner or shopping.

“Who would we invite? And what plans are you talking about?” Mixing the questions, I considered, might void a consequential answer.

Rachel had an off-putting habit of busying herself with some task when she needed to be directive in her speech. Now she rummaged through the cabinets for ingredients for dinner.

“I’d like to invite maybe ten people, all couples of course, since it’s easier to keep things lively.”

“The plan?” I asked again.

“Why don’t we have a drink and talk about this. You can make us something new. I bought a cocktail recipe book for you.”

I made Algonquins and placed them on the diamond coasters. Rachel wore a short dress and buck leather ankle boots. Listening to her talk was a deliberate diversion from my attuned libido. I always wanted her, even when she was unavailable and this sometimes complicated my ability to interpret her message. Lately when we had sex I used her predilection for combining drinks with intimacy to calibrate certain physical features. We would be thirty minutes into coitus when she would become inert and pliable (a certain result if she drank three martinis in a half hour). I measured the length of her leg (to calculate her leg-to-body ratio) while she slept and then laid a soft seamstress’s tape from her navel to Mons pubis to anus to figure if the two distances yielded the Golden Measure, an aesthetic recognized in art and architecture.

“We’ve been together for almost a year, keeping separate residences. Let me move in since this is the larger condo and we can have a consistent relationship with fewer interruptions.”

Consistent sounded like “committed”. I still had thirty-six million dollars in liquid assets and although she did not know the exact girth of my holdings, I had no doubt that my flamboyant purchases let her guess I was worth more than a few million.

“Yes. Let’s reconfigure the place for when this happens. You have a lot to bring.” I poured the Algonquin down my throat and felt it burn my heart.

Everything in the next two months revolved around the impending conjugation. People use language to describe this event that equates a relationship as a series of rungs on a ladder. “Taking it to the next level” they will say, as if there is a linear and upward path one follows in the evolution of love. The problem is that ladders are often wobbly and inexperienced ascensionists will topple the path near the final rung (is this last rung called death, or marriage?). I saw relationships as a circle where there is no end or beginning, a merry-go-round from which you jump at any time.

Rachel owned enough things to require every item in the loft to be assigned a new place. The kitchen suffered the most turbulence from her arrival and half of what I had was sent away to Goodwill to make room for her superior equipment. I hired the a carpenter to partition the bedroom so a second closet could contain Rachel’s clothes, shoes and lingerie. She altered the perception of space and time: the loft felt a thousand square feet smaller and the day seemed six hours longer after her move was complete.

This was nice for ten days, maybe eleven if you count the day she worked late and I consumed three hookers and a bottle of Jim Beam, although a fifth of the bottle was spilled on the stomach of one escort who lay on her back so I could see how much liquid could be held in the reservoir of her flat tight stomach. For a few hundred dollars the escorts let me photograph their faces and then load the images onto a computer where a program let me superimpose each face onto a grid. An algorithm constructed a statistical profile of the hooker, identifying the degree to which her chin, nose, cheekbones, forehead and eyes adhered to universal standards for physical beauty. My favourite and most expensive escort’s neonate features yielded numbers against which Rachel would be judged. If Rachel wasn’t at least as attractive as the hooker, whose cost was a fraction of the total amount for Rachel (including the psychic costs attached to Rachel’s speech mannerisms—too many “likes”—and body tics such as a nail biting), then a binary choice was needed: stay or go?

Our social life was flourishing. Rachel had us attending Toronto International Film Festival parties in September and private functions with editors and publishers fêting visiting authors in October. My subscription to Esquire provided appropriate suggestions for attire and lately my wardrobe was attuned to grey tones with lots of blue accents. I was thinking of dyeing my hair grey rather than wait for my melanocyte stem cells to stop pumping out the vigorous topsoil-black colour I currently had. Grey is sophisticated and urbane, I learned, and I liked its wavering between black and white; a nice compromise of extremes, the median.

At one of these parties, a cocktail and nibble affair for some do-good author, where one had to stand the entire evening and hold a perspiring drink (admittedly, whisked away when empty and replenished without any qualms or queries), Rachel introduced me to a lawyer who worked with some big firm on Bay Street crucifying patent infringers for five hundred dollars per billable hour.

The guy was tether-ball pole tall and skinny. His clothes hung nicely on him; so many tall thin men look ill or like parking meters with “out-of-order” bags draped over them. He was model material. Every mathematical measure of male attractiveness I could bring to bear on my assessment clearly decided he was extremely good looking. I was sure, though, that he had a fraction of my wealth.

“Have you read this guy’s book? I can’t be bothered. I don’t give a shit about schools in Africa. The schools here need help. Charity begins at home, right?”

I liked the lawyer’s thrust with the argument and felt a kindred spirit was near. We might possibly become friends, with me playing the role of a wry rich benefactor to his favourite charities. For an hour we talked about our shared disdain for socialists, G20 protestors, parsimonious bartenders, open toe sandals and the war on poverty.

“What a great guy your lawyer buddy is,” I told Rachel in the cab home. “We need to get him over for dinner. He’s a big fan of anything Italian.”

“I already did invite him. I saw how well you two were talking and thought he’d be a nice complement to our first anniversary dinner party.”

Rachel was becoming assertive, less pliant. Another list was needed. Some sort of ordinal ranking scheme that would snuff out any doubts about Rachel’s beauty, intelligence, fun quotient, or broader entertainment value.

Using a six-by-four matrix to organize the salient metrics about Rachel was easy enough and designing a rough copy of the rubric required about an hour’s effort and then another hour to fill the chart. Beside “humour” I entered a 3, rather than the highest score of 4, because she never told jokes and her witticisms, like the wines she drank, were too dry for my taste. I did, however, give a 4+ for “sexuality”; partly because anything lower would reflect poorly on me and our sex life owed much of its vigor and inventiveness to my efforts.

In an impromptu insight, Rachel decided that we should keep our lawyer friend Daniel to ourselves before bringing him into a larger group of guests. She prepared a sumptuous meal for Daniel (or Danny, depending on your relationship to him, so if you were a long-time friend you used the less formal moniker, otherwise he expected the lawyerly “Daniel”). Celery stuffed with gorgonzola was stacked across a square plate, placed beside a round plate with flowers fashioned from prosciutto petals and fig stamen. I was surprised that pasta bows with prawns and peas appeared as a main dish (she did offer an alternate of short pasta with spring vegetables) since Rachel knew I was severely allergic to shellfish and would be forced to dine with my Epi-pen on the table.

If I remember this dinner with any clarity at all, or extinguish whatever resentments I have built up over time, I see three people engaged in a rather cliché gathering where there is laughing, drinking, eating, many compliments to the chef and many toasts. The conversation pinged and ponged equally amongst us; no monkey-in-the-middle for this convivial threesome.

“Well, I have very much enjoyed the dinner, Rachel, but it’s time for business.” Daniel pulled a file from his satchel and placed it on the table.

“What the hell, Daniel! Let’s drink! What kind of work belongs in our house? I don’t even have a job!” I hit the exclamations a little hard, three glasses of wine having been followed by brandy.

Rachel moved beside Daniel and spoke.

“Daniel is going to give you some legal papers. I’m leaving tonight and these will explain your options and the associated costs.”

A litre of inhaled air escaped me in sixty seconds of hiccups. The effect was funny at the time; it gave credence to later versions of this story where I became a happy drunk, listening intently to what I was being told but really quite incapable of seriously considering it.

“Rachel has constructed a claim against you for an amount between two hundred and two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars, “Daniel proclaimed. “This represents the improvement she has made to your condo, which we estimate has increased in value by at least one half million dollars since she began improving it. Additionally, the entire contents of this condo-furniture, rugs, artwork, and linens- will be removed at the end of this week by the company from which it was leased.”

Danny drank two fingers deep from his wine glass and Rachel sipped-slurped her diminished reservoir.

Apparently, Rachel had banked every dollar I’d given her to decorate and furnish the loft, then hired a staging company to complete the loft and used my line of credit to secure the deferred payment, which was now due. The fellating decorator was part of the ruse.

I’m good with math. I have a degree in it and I can write copy that will sell anything. I use both sides of my brain equally, an ambidextrous cerebral cortex. I was not, however, going to spin this into anything but what it was: a win-win outcome.

“I have something I’d like to show you Rachel. You might be interested in this Danny, if you intend to have her when we are done.”

I passed across the table the Excel spreadsheet containing Rachel’s assessment, although neither of them could quite grasp what they were supposed to understand.

“Rachel. Overall you are a ‘two’, meaning that you are below expectations in every way, except for the sex part. I can’t date a woman who is subpar since it demeans me and I can’t internalize an ad campaign to convince myself you are anything but a remaindered product.”

I walked to the kitchen and took a cheque and a calculator out of the dedicated stationery drawer.

“Have you heard of the Drake Equation, Rachel? Daniel?” Without wine in their glasses they looked like they were waiting for the bill at the bar, desperate to leave.

“Yep, I didn’t think so. It’s an equation that can be used to determine the likelihood of extraterrestrial life, but you can modify it to figure how many perfect partners exist for you in a given city. I did the math and it turns out that in Toronto there are exactly sixteen women who are right. You’re not one of them.”

I’d only discovered this equation a few days ago and vowed to use it to narrow the future field of eligible women and to be bridle my enthusiasm for possible matches.

The amount I paid Rachel consumed less than one percent of my wealth, a trifling tuition fee for such a valuable lesson. I heard that she’d used the money to expand her kitchen and menu and put a new drink on the bar roster called “The Drake Equation”. For the past three months I have revised calculations and lists and redecorated the loft in a style that befits my linear sensibilities (geometric patterns dominate the style). Although there are only fifteen women left in the city whose paths can fruitfully intersect mine, I have decided to step outside the equation and enjoy relations with transitory women. Lust is all I need.

]]>http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/ego-sideroad/feed/0The Regularshttp://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/the-regulars/
http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/the-regulars/#commentsMon, 16 Sep 2013 01:20:23 +0000http://www.pendulinepress.com/?post_type=author_article&p=2852Damn, that seems like a lot to spend on a sex toy.
Middle age couples tend to lose their manners
somewhere between the bar & the parking lot,
volleying winks & invitations to join them
across the counter. I always decline, & busy myself
with inventory, hoping that another soccer mom
hasn’t crammed a vibrator into her purse
while I had been re-shelving Geisha Boys or Gia’s Got
a Negro Problem 8.]]>
On my first day the first thing I sell is a battery
operated vibrating vagina for $248.37.
I don’t think to imagine the customer using it,

but am certain to recommend water based lubricant
as lube with a silicone base can lead to chemical breakdown,
while thinking, Damn, that seems like a lot to spend on a sex toy.

Middle age couples tend to lose their manners
somewhere between the bar & the parking lot,
volleying winks & invitations to join them

across the counter. I always decline, & busy myself
with inventory, hoping that another soccer mom
hasn’t crammed a vibrator into her purse

while I had been re-shelving Geisha Boys or Gia’s Got
a Negro Problem 8. Openly gay men are the most polite.
I feel bad when one asks me, with a look of dying hope,

“Don’t you have any movies that don’t have boys?”
I apologize, “Twinks are in,” & silently consider
the potential market for Hot Bear On Wolf Action.

I chain smoke, watching women fresh out of girlhood.
They can barely make eye contact as they nervously browse
DVDs featuring women of their own body type, perhaps

hoping to learn what they think men will want. Sifting through neon
dildos & vibrators, the same colors as the pillows
I imagine they leave scattered on the floor, discovering the needs

of their own bodies. Only the regulars catch me off guard, arriving
before my shift, staying for hours afterward. I never ask why
they aren’t somewhere, anywhere, else on this summer afternoon

other than a porn store. They tell me about coming out to their wives in the 80’s,
trading pastel Polos for neon t-shirts, watching friends get bio-hazard symbol
tattoos before being lowered into the ground. They tell me of their children,

show me pictures of grandchildren with pride that doesn’t know sexuality.
They tell stories of their parents having key parties in the Ozarks during
Prohibition. We eat the cake they made for my coworker’s birthday.

The H is for High-and-Dry

Christ has risen! And then He moved into my place, flopped down on my couch, and hasn’t risen since.
He eats my cereal and refuses to learn where my vacuum cleaner is.

He says His dad’s got work lined up for Him out of state, but the job doesn’t start until after Easter.

Some days, arriving home from work, I have to navigate legions of cripples and blind lepers to get to my front
door and into my living room, where He’ll be on my couch performing healings—
except, of course, during All My Children.

Sometimes His crew rolls up, and they kick it in my living room, but usually
He kicks His feet up on my coffee table,
kicks off His sandals, and kicks
their asses at Halo.

He hasn’t washed even a fork since He showed up here with His satchel of herb, but my feet are as clean as ever.
I wish I could say the same for the toilet—apparently
He’s not acquainted with flushing
or toilet paper—His robes are starting to reek.

But He is fun at parties:
B.Y.O.H2O!

And it is nice to have more prostitutes around the house—maybe one of them will tell my landlord not to worry about the missing rent check.
I’ve been too busy scrubbing wine stains out of my carpet to ask for rent.

This morning I woke—He was gone, left only a dirty pillowcase,
my fig-stained couch and an old pile of IOU’s.

Fingers like Snakes

Outside the courthouse, two young women
walk by—I look at the breasts: these pairs,

tiny, like gentle rises in the landscape
of a barren chest—I realize why

I’ve always gravitated toward the small ones—
it’s that they look underdeveloped, like the body

still contains its ancient innocence,
like the girls I first noticed in sixth

grade, the awkward glances, the pure
joy of the playground, a lifted skirt.

Sacrament

The priest’s hands are red with cash
and the salvation of just under a million
served—Sunday visitors that weave

through the oaken doors, past stained glass
storybooks, to stop at penitent seating
and murmurs of fear disguised as calculated

arguments for personal salvation.
He again thrusts his spotted hands in the air,
a practiced motion he calls beseeching—

the frontmost parishioners are misted with pages he boils down into
flecks of red— the easiest argument to make
centuries of study and a thousand children could devise this:

What you are feeling is correct, my children.
You are not enough, and never shall you be.
He made us incomplete, which is why we must

]]>http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/the-h-is-for-high-and-dry-fingers-like-snakes-sacrament/feed/0A cigar aficionadohttp://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/a-cigar-aficionado/
http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/a-cigar-aficionado/#commentsMon, 16 Sep 2013 00:44:24 +0000http://www.pendulinepress.com/?post_type=author_article&p=2941
He was a retired banker,
and a cigar aficionado
with a white hickory caterpillar-like
moustache over his lips wet from
the glass of whiskey in his hand,
and in the other a Romeo cigar
from which smoke unfurled
the ghosts of Mercutio and Tybalt,
the blood of foes, he said, tasted
dark and truculent but Romeo’s
bittersweetness calmed the quarrel
while Juliet swooped to give
a tender kiss and smooth
the roughness on his lips, though
this kiss could not compare to
the taste of the Little Maiden,
a rare and deviant collection
that he kept in an agarwood box
for this maiden was more precious
than his own daughter’s life, he laughed
and flicked away Romeo’s ashes
and opened the box to reveal hidden
underneath a sheer cloth twenty maidens
resting peacefully on a bed of blue velvet,
one he gently woke and tenderly held,
oh, darling, he cooed, ’tis the time
to make you mine and forever mine,
and was soon slouched on the couch
immobiled by her blissful essence
for he felt on his tongue
the smoothness of her ivory thigh
on which the tobacco leaves
were rolled by expert hands
from knee cap to pelvic hip,
and he sighed a sigh of longing
for that hairless and supple thigh,
now came the taste of something luscious
and pure which this devil’s tongue
could barely endure, panting and sweating,
oh, this fruit whose juice had sealed
this very cigar, he savored and swallowed
as though he drunk it straight from
the maiden’s nether lips, far much better
than pilgrims touching hands, and he swore
he heard her peal of laughter, his caterpillar
moustache had tickled Venus’s mound,
and beside her he shuddered and released
the final stream of smoke, her white dress
swaying and gliding about his reeling head,
and her fragrance like that of a girl skipping
through a prairie field or lying beside
the oceanside, bathing nude in the sunlight,
but the mirage left him nothing more
than the piece of cloth cut from her dress.
]]>http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/a-cigar-aficionado/feed/0Unmovedhttp://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/unmoved/
http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/unmoved/#commentsMon, 16 Sep 2013 00:37:46 +0000http://www.pendulinepress.com/?post_type=author_article&p=2846
I am not interested in your poems about masturbation
Honestly. What’s between you and your fingers should stay there
I don’t care to share how you feel when you come
when you’re coming

I am about as fascinated in your bodily functions
as I am in the inner workings of hypertext transfer protocol
or your spirituality
or porn

The way you stretch your red-slicked mouth
to emphasise each syllable of
clit – or – is
makes me sick

I take no pleasure from your self pleasure
your shock does not shock me
I am not interested in you at all
just me.

]]>http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/unmoved/feed/0Sympathetic Magichttp://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/sympathetic-magic/
http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/sympathetic-magic/#commentsMon, 16 Sep 2013 00:06:20 +0000http://www.pendulinepress.com/?post_type=author_article&p=2959The aversion to crowds, a feeling passed down by your father, though neither of you has
ever spoken to the other about it.
The collection of developed photographs, still in their processing envelopes, taken long
before the digital age. You remember all the faces, but not all the names attached to each
one.
The bouts of depression pushed through during your high school years.
The regret of your first backseat tryst that sits in the back of your memory, black and
cloudy and always floating near the surface of any given moment.
The way you silently stalk the men you fall in love with, even decades later into middle
age.]]>
This is the photo album of the grandmother. It contains pictures of her as an infant growing into a hand-holding toddler standing on cathedral steps with your great-grandfather. It contains pictures of rides on old bicycles, beach vacations, high school dances, engagement photos. It holds images of a matriarch-to-be, unveiled with back straight and chin lifted high, regal, hefting a bouquet between laced hands.
The pictures age the way their subjects do. The early black and whites are clear, defined, before giving way to the yellow-blurred and faded color photos when your father begins appearing in his own album of memories captured on paper.
This is what the grandmother’s photo album does not contain:

Pictures of an uncle that never came to term.
The alcohol and paranoia-fueled fists of your grandfather.
Pictures of the many bruises those fists made.
Your father locked in a closet for hours as punishment for something he did not do.
The force it takes to make a switch leave welts on young backsides.
The briefest moment of true sadness when drunken grandfather tumbled down the stairs
and broke his neck.
The tears that were not shed by your father or your grandmother at the funeral.
The suspicious looks the neighbors gave your mother for years after.
The relief grandmother felt raising your father on her own.

+ + +

This is your father’s closet. The floor is lined with polished dress shoes, all laces tied in perfect bows. Seven shades of belt hang from the clothing rod, each hanging with equal distance between them. This is the motorized tie rack that keeps each tie perfectly folded and in place. It is organized by color first, followed by size and directionality of stripes.
His dress shirts are starched and stiff, ironed to a crispness you’ve never been able to perfect yourself. There are exactly twenty-one of them, hanging from darkest to lightest in the very middle of the closet, stuck between the belts and the fourteen suits, hung straight and dry-cleaned from darkest to lightest as well.
This is your father’s dresser, full of matching socks tucked neatly inside like stacked dinner rolls. Next to them, fourteen minimally decorative boxes containing uniquely designed pairs of cuff links. Gold, silver, platinum; they all glitter in the dim light of the ceiling fan.
This is what the father’s collection does not contain:

His love of the sound of ice clinking against glass.
His fear of crowds, a natural pushing away from the swell of human tides that makes him
feel insignificant, alone while surrounded.
The quiet he dwells in, savoring the taste of loneliness like old scotch on his soul’s
tongue. He swirls it around and basks in its layered flavor.
His love of the burn as it coats his throat.
The way he pines over lost loves.
The way he fell asleep on the toilet remembering memories that never were.
The way he wonders his what-ifs, what-could’ve-beens, the what-should’ves.
The way he ruminates on the past instead of relishing the present.
The way he questions the decisions that brought him to the now.
The way he turns the word “happiness” around in his brain, trying to figure out if he’s
found the key to fit its tumblers, wondering why he’s never heard their satisfying click.

+ + +

This is your mother’s jewelry box, all glinting and glittery in the dim light of the basement bedroom. Each facet glimmers and glams, hypnotizing her by the moments each piece evokes. It is a pastiche of costume shine and authentic dazzle. She believes that mixing up the expensive pieces with the worthless ones will confuse anyone who might break in to her home. Your mother doesn’t seem to understand that the common thief will simply take it all and sort it out later.
This is your mother’s perfume table, the bottled colors reflecting and refracting out onto the surface like a scented rainbow. This bottle (short and squat and full of amber) is from a former lover, a brief affair she will never admit to your father. This bottle (tall and jade in color, contents unknown) is from her mother, an engagement gift. This bottle (blue and almost nondescript) is the one she wears most often. It reminds her of your birth.
What these bottles do not show:

The smell of bactine on your first scraped knee.
The scent left behind of a man she did not know personally (her decision? your father’s?).
The sterility of a hospital room after surgery, the fear of needles and scarred belly.
The odor of her first (and last) attempt at family meal, burned and tough like shoe
leather, swept away only by the fanning of doors by you and your father as you shared
secret smiles across the room.
The popcorn-scented ticket stubs for movies she would go see alone, waiting and wishing
for the actors to smile down at her from the screen the way your father never could.

+ + +

This is your library. Stacks of political theory sandwiched between bad detective stories, a single romance novel, and nonfiction collections, a small few of which you can relate. The stacks are arranged by level of interest, biographically by latest whim to earliest. You don’t remember what lies at the bottom of the back-most stacks.
Your shelves are filled with three-ring binders full of class notes and graded papers and handouts you’ve never bothered to read through again. Bad poetry reviewed by other bad poets, deconstructions of papers comparing the inferno of Dante and Margarite’s involvement with the devil. This is your education compacted in a five foot square space.
What your library does not reveal:

The aversion to crowds, a feeling passed down by your father, though neither of you has
ever spoken to the other about it.
The collection of developed photographs, still in their processing envelopes, taken long
before the digital age. You remember all the faces, but not all the names attached to each
one.
The bouts of depression pushed through during your high school years.
The regret of your first backseat tryst that sits in the back of your memory, black and
cloudy and always floating near the surface of any given moment.
The way you silently stalk the men you fall in love with, even decades later into middle
age.
The way you turn the word “happiness” around in your brain like your father did, though
neither of you has ever spoken to the other about it.

+ + +

This is the crib your little brother never slept in. It is padded along each side and an unused blanket sits folded in the middle. A knitted bear you made while he was full in mother’s belly rests in the corner, black button eyes staring out through the wooden slats onto a room no one’s entered in years. Dust coats the changing table.
What the room does not reveal:

Little brother’s (future) name.
A picture of his (future) footprint stamped upon a laminated page.
Pictures of his (future) first days of kindergarten, elementary school, junior high. He
would have grown tired of the ritual by high school.
The (future) way he turns the word “happiness” around in his brain like his father did,
though neither of them will ever have the chance to speak to the other about it.
Anything of his (future).

Both kinds of romantics—bitter and naïve—yearn for one-night magic to change everything into Gatsby’s parties, but green lights turn into red lights and DUIs in the sleet, and city doorways reek of recycled champagne.

Not about sex, but dark chocolate, red lingerie, a dozen roses purchased at triple price, reserved tables of nouveau cuisine, and velvet boxes of diamond bracelets feeding the fever of what will you spend for me?

Bombs in color—how fun! Who cares who we are as long as we’re number one?

Whatever.

An apocalypse of anonymity, alter egos let loose at dusk demand candy in costumes, rehearsing entitlement for their starring moments decades later when they don masks to rob banks and shoot presidents.

Oh, god, the family again, ameliorated only by turkey grease and pie crust lard washed down with mudslides into a deep tryptophan coma and the hypnotic violence of television football.

75% off plus free shipping!

]]>http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/the-seven-deadly-holidays/feed/0First Confessionhttp://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/first-confession/
http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/first-confession/#commentsSun, 15 Sep 2013 23:28:14 +0000http://www.pendulinepress.com/?post_type=author_article&p=3030
I’ve lost my husband to a “scag,” the Scaglietti he proclaims is his pride
and joy, itself an emblem of our sports-car life. And indeed, we are the envy
of the neighborhood, never mind the tickets, traffic school, the course in anger
management, or that we no longer fuck face-to-face, a love embrace only sloth
and human own the anatomy to enjoy. He has handed down his greed,
heart-rot of the family tree, to our teen-aged daughter, whose budding lust

for cosmetics and clothes crams nearly two walk-in closets. Designer dresses, lustrine
party gowns. She’s wild in violets and pinks, but he thinks she’s as sweet as the pride-
of-California that’s overtaking our lawn, buds spiting bulbs I buried beneath greeds
and compost last fall. Failed blooms, but still I see them underground, growing envy
green of the wildflowers. Meanwhile, his oversized mower fossilizes like a giant sloth,
extinct in the garage. If I mention it, it’s a scene straight from Don’t Look Back in Anger,

dinner theatre of the dining room, constant kitchen-sink drama. I’m slow to anger,
actually, frustration fermenting for years before becoming vinegar while he lusts
after pool girls, those mothers of pearl and daughters of zirconia. My rage is sloth-
slow, a stealthy predator, invisible in tall grass, but it pounces as merciless as a pride
of lions, tearing flesh from baby goats, devouring injured antelopes alive. I envy
the life of a lion king whose duties exclude hunting and rearing cubs who greedily

feed from even sleeping mothers. My own mother would always play greedy
glede with my brother and me. It seemed when Father went away, her anger
went with him. And the way he spoke of business trips provoked no envy—
endless flights to Sydney and Western Australia. But oh, the souvenirs, lustrous
minerals and gemstones, my favorite, the rectangular prisms and plates of priderite,
a polished black piece I keep with a snapshot of him and me, sitting in a sloth

-tree on a trip to South America. But memory is nothing more than a murky sloth,
a miry, muddy place of the subconscious, overgrown with the green greeds
and duck weed of years, where imagination slithers like a sand-pride;
thoughts disrupt the surface then disappear, leaving us sometimes with anger
and at others a mysterious sense of joy. The past, however illustrious
and renowned, gloriously laurelled, lauded, and crowned, will still be envious

of the present, its younger, more beautiful daughter. My analyst insists it’s penis envy,
but to reduce a woman’s woes to a desire for a dick is like mistaking a sloth
for a spider monkey. Besides, who would want one, given its routinely lack-luster
bed show? Oh, we all know that communication is the key ingredient
of a healthy marriage, but when I express how I feel, this anger
divides me, splits my lips with insults, obscenities. My crenulated heart, pried

]]>http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/first-confession/feed/0Things I Am Nothttp://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/things-i-am-not/
http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/things-i-am-not/#commentsSun, 15 Sep 2013 23:25:00 +0000http://www.pendulinepress.com/?post_type=author_article&p=2957
In the town where I grew up, everyone was always eating. Chewing was certainly allowed, and necessary, but like all things, it was looked down upon when done in excess. I heard once, in my slim and spry youth, that the priest could get a whole New York steak down in six chews. The mayor boasted he could do it in three.
The priest led the town in prayer once a month, and always ended his sermons with a doleful shout. “You are what you eat! Amen.” I imagined little pieces of pesto-mozzarella crostini in my arms, mother’s lemon-dijon chicken probably in my thighs; I imagined hot dogs exactly where you would expect them. With four bites the priest was finished with his North-Atlantic cod loin melted in leek sauce and the town chanted amen in unison.
I am not the small beauty of the forest or the soft rhythm of the sea, unless the small beauty is roasted venison backstrap in gooseberry sauce and the soft rhythm something like miso-glazed salmon or grilled tilapia. Sometimes I wish that eyes and ears were like mouths and stomachs so that I could fill myself with sunsets and sonatas like bruschetta and chicken cordon bleu, but it’s hard to imagine little pieces of those things in my fingers and belly, so every time I give up the thought.
This time, I notice that everyone has been staring at me. Of course, I was chewing. My mother, the last person to notice, threw her hands up in the air and my father shook his head. I swallowed my cod loin and almost choked on the mint julep funnel cake as the soft din of utensils went on without me.

+ + +

A hundred, a thousand hurried meals later I was on my way to graduation. To wear the white crossover collar, to throw my toque into the air in celebration, these were my ambitions, these were the things that I would think about when all of my friends were out somewhere getting wasted, crossing out their days with black sharpies and their nights with whatever burning liquid seemed to be on hand. These were the nights I was in the kitchen blackening my Coq au Vin and thinking that my whole body must be made up of longing.
I was sad most days. The professors at my school knew about me from my chewing faux pas however many years ago, and everywhere my dishes were scolded and laughed at. In Entremier class my baby artichokes were suffocated by pancetta and mint. In Boulanger, my naan caught fire in the tandoor, and I cultured my Rye with Yersinia Pestis instead of Lactobacillus. Soon after, the entire school was sick. The dean’s house was covered in vomit; the hospital was packed like finals week in winter. Fraternity row didn’t look very different. The priest came to the school chapel and prayed for the sick and spread the good word, “As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father; so he that eateth me, he also shall live because of me.” Communion wafers were given out with speed and swallowed. The sous-boulanger told me, coughing in between the giant rolls of fat around his mouth, that I would never be a chef.
That same night I was stripped of my puntilla and steak knives. My bread knife was confiscated forever, and the rest of them were dulled against an old mortar and given back to me, sharp enough only for butter. My pans were to be disinfected in chemical bleach and my Dutch oven was lost forever to the landfill. That day I walked to the chapel in tears and spoke to the priest. He told me there were other ways to live. “Life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. You can be a cook instead of a chef,” he said, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” The words hung on me ears for a long time with a great heaviness. I said, “Thank you, Father” and I tried very hard to swallow the lump in my throat that did not let me say anything more. Following my suspension I cooked in secret, and I chewed. I had to chew. There was no other way to cut my food into edible pieces, and the shame. The shame engulfed me. For days I hardly left my room. When I ate, I ran the faucet so that nobody would hear.
For a whole semester I chewed by myself, and after that I had to leave. I lost fifty pounds and was devastated. How could anybody trust a chef who did not carry his meals around with him? They would think I was ashamed of my own creations. A few times a thought would come into my mind. I could move to the fishing town, or the farming town with its outspoken priest who wore overalls and could plow a whole acre in twenty minutes. But the thoughts quickly passed; I am a slave to cooking, and a slave to passion is no slave at all.
When I dropped further down to two hundred and eighty pounds, I packed what was left of my things and my too-big shirts and too-big pants, and watched the sourdoughs rise over the convection plates in the oven, knowing full and well I would never make it here. It was the last dough rise I would ever see. I squeezed past my four-hundred-pound roommate Theodore out into the hallway. I passed the spices, the small and lovely bottles in their neat lines, and I missed advieh and harissa, the crushed wild paprika and saffron harvests in summertime. I missed them, if not for themselves, then for the way that they smelled when I pulled them out of their little glass vials before lecture.
I cooked and tried hard in my apartment, but without spices, which were expensive, my creations floundered. Often, I would take nostalgic walks past the school that I once so loved. Some days I could smell the classrooms through the open windows, the lemon rind shavings over Alaskan king crab as they were being carried through he halls, and hear the faint cracking of soufflé glazes being broken up softly by silver spoons. My colleagues were on their way to becoming chefs. I tried my best to catch up and make do with what I had. My fettuccini in tear bolognaise, my baked potato dandruff compilation, and my filet mignon braised in Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue were all complete failures. I chewed them all down and was ashamed.

+ + +

My mother called once, but it was awkward, and laden with silence. She said that she didn’t raise me to chew in public. She didn’t raise me to chew at all… “Why can’t you be like your sister? She is swallowing all the time… And do you ever see her sad? I haven’t seen her sad once… You have to chew in front of the whole town and make our family look bad. I didn’t raise you like that. I don’t know where you got that from.”
I didn’t know either. While she was on the phone I sat at my kitchen table and chewed over her words. When she talked, I did not know what to say. I pushed over the saltshaker with my finger and it spilled a few little white piles of salt onto the table.

+ + +

I worked as a cook. The priest was kind enough to give me a recommendation at a fast food chicken restaurant on the east side. The mahogany ladle I traded for a spatula, the spice rack for little white packets that explode sauce when you step on them. Every night I flipped burgers and closed my eyes, and for a moment; a moment and a half every time, I saw myself in a white chef’s coat serving my meals to faint music and half-crescent mouths that closed tightly and swallowed. When I could hold them shut no longer, and the whole world would moan in mixed pain and release, my eyes would widen onto the pastel bars of window gleam that found their way through the blinds and onto the shiny red booth seats. The hostess would come by with a sixteen set disposable rainbow of crayons for the kids, and the bus boy would clean a half-eaten burger off of an empty table.
I still chewed. Often I did it absent-mindedly, and the bus boys snickered behind their largeness and jeered when they caught me. There was no epiphany moment when I began chewing regularly, no grand change and then relief. The process of coming to terms with my chewing was as demure as walking down the street and smelling rain on the asphalt, and looking at the little rainbows that the gasoline makes in the puddles, or watching the sun shine through an orange layer of pollution at six p.m. It was like eating olives and hating them, before finding something more to their taste than just bitterness.
Every once in a while the priest, that kind kind man, called to see how I was doing. The last time he called he said, “Son, I’m going to pray for you. I know you chew too much. I remember when I used to chew too much as well. You probably don’t believe me, but I used to chew over stacks of pancakes in ten, fifteen bites. But then the good Lord came to me in a vision and He told me that all I had to do was give up chewing and just believe, and I would be happy.”
While he was talking I sat down in my kitchen with the salt still pushed over on the table. I watched the faucet spew water over the dishes that I hadn’t done, and the knives.
“There is no need for you to chew it all over. Some day I’m sure you will understand.” Quietly, he added, “You are what you eat, Amen” and hung up the phone.
I tried hard to think about his words. I wondered about the things that I was. I tried to remember if I had cooked loneliness into my breakfast. Maybe I had spilled some heartache with the salt. I searched everywhere for emptiness, in the cabinets and the pantry, the refrigerator and my stomach, and my heart, and my veins. But there was no emptiness any of those places, just blood. Only blood.

The Pits

My parents paid for my smartphone since I argued it would help me find work. I could access online employment sites while taking the bus around the city, looking for a job the old fashioned way: face time, contacts.
Apparently no one wanted to hire a college drop-out with only half a business major. My parents had demanded I get a business degree—“we want some return on our investment”—but the classes taught me business was a rat race that functioned more through troglodytic glad-handing and backslapping than anything approaching managerial acumen.
After a couple weeks filling out crummy applications, I ended up heading out to Pershing Square, or Venice Beach, or some park in Orange County each day instead. I just hung around for a bit, watching skater kids, weightlifters, passersby. The ride out and back usually took most of my time.
Today, I decided to visit the La Brea Tar Pits. I wandered past a skeleton of a giant ground sloth, a diorama of saber-tooth cats, and a clutter of fossils on exhibit. These behemoths wouldn’t have survived anyway: the ice age was already thawing when they’d stumbled in the asphalt lake and drowned. Later, Los Angeles would become a bigger asphalt lake.
The black pits bubbled and steamed. Dead leaves, soda cans, burger wrappers, and other crap scumbled the surface, slowly sinking into the prehistoric debris.
My phone rang.
“Hi. —John?”
“Yeah.”
“We’d like to interview you for a position.”
“Awesome. Who’s this?”
“It’s Charlie. From Chuck E. Cheese’s on Wilmot.”
“Oh. You guys are looking for an assistant manager, right?”
“Well, that position’s been filled. But a cast member spot opened up.”
“Wait. You want me to wear a giant… fucking… RAT suit?”
I hurled my phone. The stupid thing stuck in the sludge, an artifact for latter-day paleontologists.
On the bus ride home, I could almost feel my bones twinkle under museum glass.

Alma Mater

Jim’s late so I’m stuck around these middle-age biddies. One of mom’s co-workers shanghaies me in the kitchen, where I’ve tried to escape their party. “I hear you’re going to Dartmouth next year, is that right?”
I nod, eyes below my hat-brim, and fiddle my phone. “Uh-huh.”
“Do you know anyone there?”
“Yeah. My friend Jim and I are both going.”
She hovers near the punchbowl; the other ladies have left for the living room. She hands me a little Dixie cup, saying, “I went there myself.”
I look up at her, uncertain for a second. I grasp it and sip. “Was it fun?” Maybe she’s what, thirty, thirty-two? Her bra-strap’s showing.
“Best years of my life,” and so on she says. My hand holds another cup before I realize I’m done. “One month, and you’re on your own—how does that feel?” she asks, stroking my arm.
I reach in my pocket, second nature, my fingers circling each button. I text Jim, this Milf is like hitting on me.
“Good—it’ll be good to, y’know…” I lift my cup, tilt my head, mimicking a confident gesture.
“Yeah,” she says, then “I think I need another,” bending around to pour a drink. I take the opportunity to glance at my phone. Jim’s said bullshit, he wants a picture of us making out. I hear murmurs from the other room. She’s still turned away, pouring me a drink.
I lean in, kiss her on the neck, bite down slightly. She lifts her skirt. I don’t react at first. Then I offer a scant graze. She arches her back. I snap a picture. A shrill laugh issues from the living room. I jerk away, standing stiff and distant that instant.
“I’ll be visiting soon,” she says.
“Really?”
“Homecoming. And don’t worry, your friend can watch if he wants.”

Empty Calories

Todd poured his generic bag of Choco-Oh’s into his bowl. Drowsily, he sloshed them with skim milk, which was little more than bleached water.
Saturday. So he’d lumbered out of bed early for no real reason, then. He didn’t feel like watching TV, not even cartoons. Or reading the newspaper. He felt a little puffy, woozy, unmoored. Not exactly hung-over. Not really. Maybe it was the hotdogs, the hashbrowns he ate late last night after the pub crawl. Garbage, but at least it kept the swill down. A listless vacancy, a sea-sickening absence at the heart of things, overtook every object. His body felt the heavy sink of matter. But looking around, the too-bright film of his surroundings only burned away. Light and shadow, what were they? Nothing, nothing—a fleeting emphasis of color or a lack thereof. Without them, however, the space around him would have no depth, no dimension whatsoever. The material world that he knew was just a tingling of neurons, a configuration of impulses. Flashbacks without a past. Or more likely: blackouts, confabulations. Flicker and gone. What was to gain? Yet, he knew he’d do it all again.
Only the boundary of things was real, only the surface gave off a sign of its presence. Insides might as well be evacuated, for all the good they did. He needed to take some more supplements.
He spooned up a mouthful of soggy Choco-Oh’s, nauseated as they dissolved into processed sugar and synthetic crunch. The remaining ones floated in a muddied glimmer, muddled clusters of voids. Dark strings or rings of zeroes.
Todd’s eyes went slack. He blinked and tried to focus on the photo in front of him, squinting. When he concentrated, he discerned a blown-up dot-matrix, a Lichtenstein pop art effect that made the image blur and squiggle. The gestalt no longer cohered. Its substance had dissipated into its less meaningful parts. He pulled back, adjusted, then let himself unfocus, gazing vaguely into the middle distance the way one did for a magic-eye poster. It was his face, his own face, on the milk carton; a missing person.

]]>http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/the-pits-alma-mater-empty-calories/feed/0Holly on Displayhttp://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/holly-on-display/
http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/holly-on-display/#commentsSun, 15 Sep 2013 22:46:41 +0000http://www.pendulinepress.com/?post_type=author_article&p=2936
Holly is standing in her doorway on display. She’s all skin and bones and bleached out panties and she’s lucky because her hair hangs down long enough to cover her nipples. She’s lucky because Mr. Actor and Mr. Dirty Divorce are both at her door, jaws to the floor, waiting to see whom she’ll invite in. She’s lucky because two is always better than none, and she thinks, just maybe, she can turn this mix-up into a napping ménage-trois and double her profits.

Holly is standing in her doorway on display. And Mr. Actor is all like, How could this happen, you know this is my time slot. And he’s talking with his hands; those big balmy palms of his; those soft un-calloused fingers that have never seen a day of hard labour. It’s all Holly can do not to interlock her fingers between the mountainous ridges of his knuckles and pull him out of the wood-framed doorway, into her scungy studio apartment. And Mr. Actor—in his tight chino pants and waffle shirt tucked in; in his desert boots and slanty po-boy cap; in his silver chains wrapped round his wrist like shackles—he’s almost in tears, because he’s got an audition this evening and he just really needs his nap.

Holly is standing in her doorway on display. And even though she can’t take her eyes from Mr. Actor’s larger-than-life hands, she can hear Mr. Dirty Divorce pleading his own case. And even though her gaze is fixated on the flexed metacarpals in Mr. Actor’s fisted grip, she can feel Mr. Dirty Divorce’s eyes on her rosy nipples puckering out between strands of sandy blonde hair. Holly mainly just thinks Mr. Dirty Divorce is a pervert because he’s always smashing his hard-on into her back when he thinks she’s sleeping, but his tips are worth the dick-shaped bruises he leaves behind.

Holly is standing in her doorway on display. Still. And she’s having a hard time making up her mind; and this whole time she hasn’t said one word to Mr. Actor or Mr. Dirty Divorce; and in a way she sort of feels bad for them because look how badly they need a nap. They’re both staring at her with eyes as big as pies, waiting for her to say something; to tell them what to do; to tell them who should stay and who should go. But Holly, she just gets this sly-fox grin on her face because she’s counting Mr. Dirty Divorce’s dollars while imagining Mr. Actor’s paraffin-smooth hands grazing her thigh. And they’re still staring at her with their desperate faces and she’s got something to tell them and she’s ready to say it, but first she’s going to get a shirt because it’s really cold in this doorway and her nipples feel as jagged as the edges of a bottle cap.

]]>http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/holly-on-display/feed/0Fat Acceptance, or Ode to Honey Boo Boohttp://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/fat-acceptance-or-ode-to-honey-boo-boo/
http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/fat-acceptance-or-ode-to-honey-boo-boo/#commentsSun, 15 Sep 2013 22:40:30 +0000http://www.pendulinepress.com/?post_type=author_article&p=2935That old Tom’s jeans
rising. They pork on their spit, smoky
blonde-haired hicks, haunches strung up
on their own plus-size assets. Ringlets gleaming,
quivering in heaps. They want nothing
but a white-scalloped plate to arrange it.
The socketed marrow to binge on. ]]>
I want to make this as sick as can be-
Hack the marrow, hack it, baby—

We can dig in. Osso bucco,
so tender it slides off the bone in.
Less an orifice. Art form or woman?

72 virgins, no holes but the one that serves
best. They eat only honey, shit honey,
the lovelies, their men end
up with graham-cracker fingers.

Fat virgins, neck-skin puckering.
Pudenda tremendous. That old Tom’s jeans
rising. They pork on their spit, smoky
blonde-haired hicks, haunches strung up
on their own plus-size assets. Ringlets gleaming,
quivering in heaps. They want nothing
but a white-scalloped plate to arrange it.
The socketed marrow to binge on.

My floozies. Oh, greatness. Lashings
of lipstick. Some vogue like piranha.
Some make every list. They pork prophets,
break egg yolks on pasta. She took up with
a prep chef. My girls look like madams, each one.

]]>http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/fat-acceptance-or-ode-to-honey-boo-boo/feed/0Charles Darwin and the Dawn of Obesity in the Americashttp://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/charles-darwin-and-the-dawn-of-obesity-in-the-americas/
http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/charles-darwin-and-the-dawn-of-obesity-in-the-americas/#commentsSun, 15 Sep 2013 20:43:55 +0000http://www.pendulinepress.com/?post_type=author_article&p=2968arequipe and postre de natas – very sweet and fattening desserts.]]>

Death in some cases unearths more family secrets than are entombed with the deceased.
My father’s death was one of those cases and now, nearly a month after his demise, I stood before
an ancient trunk, its key in hand. The key had surfaced during a cleaning out of the junk
in Dad’s office desk. The tag read, inexplicably, “Key to Inspiration Trunk.”
Soon, it would share secrets that I could never be certain my father wanted revealed.

Since his death, I had been too busy carrying out the sundry and numerous details that death delegates to the living – probate court, death certificates, and the like – to open the trunk. I was curious about it but it had simply not been a high priority. Plus, I had acquired a heavier workload in the family business.
Finally, here I was, poised to open the trunk. Though tattered and tired-looking, it still managed an aura of mystery, like a wrinkled old man with bright eyes. Of course part of the mystique was fostered by Dad, who had never allowed me to open the trunk, even as an adult working in the family business. It had been sitting in the back of the walk-in office safe for as long as I could remember; constructed of tattered leather and battered wood, cornered with metal hinges.
I slipped the key into the lock below the round top and, after some fidgeting, was able to turn it. It groaned with creaky complaint as I carefully lifted the top until it rested on its hinges. A dry, not unpleasant smell, greeted me. The dim overhead bulb of the safe did not reveal much. It looked like clothing. Dropping to my knees I fumbled through the contents to find a variety of bras and corsets, along with black dresses and other outerwear. Disappointed with my find – gold doubloons would be more valuable and less unsettling – I glanced in to the underside of the lid to find a torn painting of Christ. There was something else – a barely visible, slim and yellow-paged book sticking out from the tear in the painting. I carefully widened the tear in order to remove the sheath of parchment. The Spanish writing presented little challenge since it was the primary language in our home.
I returned with the parchment to Dad’s huge leather office chair, sank into it, and fired up one of his illegal and coveted Cubans, ready to embark on the reading. It was dated August 9th, 1848, and began innocently enough…

+ + +

My name is Doctor Hector Delgado and I am writing this history of the island of Corpulencia. May history be the judge of my actions and those of my family. Our story follows:
When Simon Bolivar’s army defeated the Spanish Loyalists, in the 1819 battle of Boyaca, Colombia, two thousand of the loyalists, led by General José Barreira, were captured and imprisoned. After a year of imprisonment, about one hundred of the officers were exiled to a small, uninhabited island named Santiago, of the Galapagos archipelago. The officers were allowed to take their families, two doctors, a priest, and servants, plus basic supplies, including food, clothing, tools, and some goats and pigs. The year of our exile was 1820. Our small island flourished, thanks to a good water supply, fertile land, and the bounty of the sea.
Fear that Bolivar’s men would someday return to attack motivated us to build a walled castle-like fortress of stone, surrounded by a deep moat. The servants would live outside the fortress walls and enter only to bring in supplies or perform their tasks.
The people were content. We worked hard and traded with ships that sailed into our small port to have the things we had been accustomed to in Spain. General Barreira’s rule was firm but evenhanded and he was unanimously admired by his former officers and their families. Isabella, the General’s wife, basked in the same affection and after eight years of bountiful rule they became King and Queen of the island.
Their only child was the Crown Princess who, even at the tender age of ten, possessed a singular beauty. Fearing that undue admiration of her beauty would stunt the development of her humility, the royal couple restricted her to the palace grounds until her first Communion, when they invited the entire populace of the island to the celebration. It was worse than they had feared. Such an enthusiastic gushing of praise greeted her that the Queen decided to again keep the Princess out of the public eye, fearing such a deluge of adulation would spoil her, no matter how they tried to countermand it. Following the first Communion, the royal nanny was instructed to keep the Princess confined to royal living quarters until her coming-out party five years later, occasioned by the Crown Princess’ Quinceañera, her fifteenth birthday.
Unfortunately, it soon became apparent that her sequester had not been well thought out. During her absence from the public she became very lonely and sought solace in food. Since she was confined to royal quarters, there was little opportunity for exercise. To complicate matters, her nanny doted on her, spoiled her, and provided any sweets the Princess hungered for. Her eating was constant, any time of day, with no restrictions.
The royal couple was unaware of this constant gorging and therefore completely perplexed about her tremendous weight gain, since she always ate sparingly at family meals. They finally summoned me, the royal doctor. The other doctor cared for the people outside the castle walls, in the servant settlement. On the day of the exam, the rotund Princess lay on her canopied bed. From her years of seclusion she had become a very modest person and the exam would obviously be quite traumatic for her.
She asked for a sedative. I happily obliged and she promptly fell into a heavy slumber. Normally, a bed this size would be reserved for the king, but this was no time for decorum; the Princess’ bulk demanded a king-size bed. I sat in a chair to the side, eyes averted, with pen and paper in hand. To maintain the Princess’ modesty, the nanny would take instructions from me to perform the tasks of a normal exam; listening to the heart, looking into the mouth, ears and so on. No medical problem was found, so I directed the nanny in less standard procedures, like examining her skin – a considerable number of square meters – for any irregularities.
“Doctor Delgado, I cannot look under the breasts without help,” the diminutive nanny complained, with a tired whine, for it had been nearly three hours of examining.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t think I can lift them.”
“You must try,” I answered. “Brace your feet and use both hands to lift.”
I could hear her struggling and then success. “Yes, the skin looks fine.”
The examination was complete, but the cause of the Princess’ obesity remained a mystery. Flummoxed, I knew I would be held accountable by the royal family. I suspected overeating, but was assured, by the nanny and the royal couple, that the Princess ate sparingly and sometimes actually skipped meals. Of course, as I later discovered, the nanny knew that the skipped meals were replaced with arequipe and postre de natas – very sweet and fattening desserts. I decided the only possible medical explanation was a goiter and I pored intently over my latest medical text from Spain to find that iodine – the only cure available – could be found in small quantities in seaweed. I instructed the Princess to drink large amounts of the water resulting from boiling seaweed. Of course, the Princess never drank the seawater and the nanny simply poured it out. And, of course, she didn’t lose any weight.
For five years, the Princess remained in the royal quarters, remained lonely, remained fat. The time for her Quinceañera was now a day away and the royal family was in a royal dither. The Princess had become quite willful – due to the nanny’s doting – and refused to attend the Quinceañera, blaming her refusal on the dress, a white one. Carlotta Noreña, the royal dressmaker, was sent for.
Black eyes shining, she strode confidently into Princess’ royal sitting room to take measurements, only to blanch when she saw the enormous task at hand. Recovering quickly, she sent for material, specifying black, to make the Princess appear smaller than the spectacular reality. Measurements were begun as they waited for the material. The tape was too short, but the nanny would hold it to the Princess until the dressmaker could get around to the other side and finish the measurement. Through artful pushing and squeezing, plus a whalebone corset, the resourceful Carlotta was able to fashion a black dress that gave an improbable illusion of what some could charitably call a large woman. The final product was less a dress than a brilliant feat of engineering or perhaps magic. After much tantrum throwing and verbal abuse directed at the dressmaker, her parents, and her dog – which she kicked – the Princess finally tried on the dress and agreed to attend the Quinceañera. It was three o’clock in the morning. The young, but brilliant, Carlotta, exhausted and sworn to strict secrecy, walked out muttering quietly and returned home, outside the castle walls, to immediately down a bottle of aguardiente and fall into bed.
Much later that morning, anticipation was palpable in the crowded square. The Princess’ eight-year hiatus had only made the mystique of her remembered beauty more compelling to her subjects. The celebration was set to begin at noon. I talked to Carlotta – waiting with everyone else for the Princess’ arrival – and she told me everything about the dressmaking debacle. Her black eyes flashed as she spoke. I wondered why she hadn’t married. We were interrupted by the tower bells announcing the Princess’ appearance. Suddenly the bells fell silent. The audience was rapt as she finally appeared on the massive steps leading from the royal quarters into the square. First a collective gasp, then silence, followed by the nanny clapping wildly. Immediately, everyone around her joined in and the clapping spread quickly throughout the square, soon turning into thunderous applause.
The celebration went splendidly. Enormous, but radiant, the Princess could only speak in small breathy gasps due to the tightness of the corset. She was even more beautiful than remembered and, as the afternoon wore on, a strange thing happened. Many of those in attendance found themselves gradually starting to feel they were relatively insignificant. They were, relatively speaking, small. Meanwhile, the Princess reveled in her reception and gained confidence from her first public outing in five years. Unfortunately, this Quinceañara marked the beginning of the demise of the island.
From that day, the Princess set a new standard for feminine beauty and comportment. Young men cried ashamedly, in private, because they could not be with her while young women cried openly because they didn’t look like her. To satiate and dull this envy and lust, they began to eat, and then they gradually began to look like her, and then it started – the emulation of the Princess. They spoke in the same breathy manner as the Princess. They ate, and ate, and ate. Within a year, the young women began to wear dresses fashioned after hers; long and black, featuring open bodices to display already ample bosoms proudly. The obliging and always entrepreneurial Carlotta developed a clever brassiere that pushed up the breasts for fullness and squeezed them together for cleavage. This push-up bra became widely popular, along with the whalebone corsets and black dresses. The dressmaker prospered.
As time passed, the appreciation of the Princess’ lifestyle also gained followers among the older generation and soon most of the populace of the castle had accepted it. The few who protested were banished to a life outside the castle in the servant settlement, with the other Thins, as they came to be known. Within two years, everyone inside the castle walls was morbidly obese.
The Princess gained considerable confidence from the acceptance of her lifestyle and the emulation from the people, and became a spokesperson for the decadent lifestyle and excesses of life. Every Sunday after church – and after the Thins had been sent back to their settlement – she would labor up the few stairs to the pulpit to hector the congregation about the godliness of gaining weight; about the glory of gluttony and the uselessness of exercise. Her encouragement of gluttony and decadence led to corpulence as a prized condition, which led to unavoidable flatulence that – while definitely not prized – was at least tolerated. Everyone understood that breaking wind was a necessary byproduct of obesity. The noise and smell were simply ignored. Perfumed hankies, imported from Spain, were helpful and when one person fluttered them around the nose, it was a signal for others to frantically pull them from sleeves and bodices and join in.
As she became more and more strident about the need for corpulence, the Princess’ weekly talk began to sound more like a harangue…
“Why are we taught that fat is bad? Actually we should be who we are, who we are meant to be, and if that means eating when we want, what we want, and how much of what we want – then so be it. We must live life! Eat, drink, dance and enjoy! That is the way!”
Eventually, she began to deride and speak derogatorily of the Thins, the people who lived outside the castle walls…
“What do the Thins have over us? They are thin because they do our work. We do the thinking. They are second-class citizens, these Thins, and deservedly so. We, the aristocracy, provide brains and they provide muscle to do our work. It is a symbiotic relationship.”
Of course, when reports of her words were leaked to the Thins, a certain restiveness began to simmer. It would become a larger problem soon. Even the King and Queen, always eager to please their only daughter, were caught up in the frenzy to gain weight.
Like the dressmaker, I was prospering. The Hippocratic oath was weighing heavily on my conscience but if I didn’t want to be banished from the castle I would have to give tacit approval to the royal lifestyle by keeping my mouth tightly shut. Soon, the royal couple developed problems along with much of the other aristocracy. The King was beset with heart problems, while the Queen was deteriorating rapidly due to diabetes.
As the castle aristocracy became heavier, so did the workload of the Thins. Plus, the general health of the aristocrats became worse and worse and my office was always overflowing. Most complaints concerned the heart, diabetes, and the joints. I had trouble knowing which road to take, the ethical road of Hippocrates, or continue on the prosperous lower road of keeping my mouth shut and simply treating the ailments of the fat.
Death sometimes solves such dilemmas. Mine was solved when the Queen died of complications from diabetes. The King died of a heart attack a week later. But now death had left a new dilemma. Turmoil loomed over my immediate future. The Princess, soon to be proclaimed Queen, would need a scapegoat for the untimely and early deaths of the royal couple. I suspected that I, as royal doctor, would have to take the blame, not the royal lifestyle. A few days after their deaths, the Princess summoned me to her quarters. She was reclined, regal and enormous, on her bed and motioned me to sit on the same chair that I always took for consultations.
“You have disappointed me, again, Doctor Delgado,” she said, in her breathy gasps. You have fought with me every step of the way and now, due to your youthful incompetence, both my parents are dead.”
Beads of sweat formed on my quivering upper lip as I asked, “My…my, youthful incompetence?”
“If you had not influenced them, they would have been more inclined to gain more weight and been more robust.”
“But….” I started to defend myself, but again she interrupted.
“I will become Queen in one month, and I want the people to know that their queen will punish those responsible for the deaths of the royal couple. You are losing only your position as royal doctor, not your life, and for that you should be grateful. Anyway, you are much too thin to be inside the castle walls.”
Abruptly, I realized that the even-handed rule of the King would not be continued. “Too thin?” I wondered if she knew that my shirt was stuffed with empty flour bags. That night I moved from my comfortable quarters to the austerity of the settlement. As a further insult, the doctor of the Thins – who had, suspiciously enough, gained much weight recently – would be moving into my quarters in the castle. Business was bad in the settlement, the Thins were simply too healthy.
To occupy my time, I returned to my old love – the natural world, especially the flora and fauna of the islands. The Galapagos were rich in diversity and for me it was a fascinating avocation and diversion from the troubles at hand. Most evenings, after a day of trekking around the island, I would have a glass of wine and dinner and review my notes at the La Taverna the only restaurant in the Thins settlement. On one of those evenings, I was on my way to the bathroom, when I stumbled on something jutting out from under a table in the corner, unreached by the dim candlelight. I squinted and peered under the table to find the offending object – the foot of a large sleeping man.
I immediately stepped back to the bar and quietly asked the barman about the sleeper.
“He’s an Englishman, Charles Darwin by name,” he said with a sneer. “He claims to be a natural scientist, but to me he is nothing but a drunken lout. He’s been in port for two days and when he isn’t drunk, he’s brawling.”
“Who said that?” an angry voice demanded. It came from under the table. “I’m going to kick the arse of he who uttered those words.”
The barman and I fell silent. In a few minutes we could hear snoring. I stepped back to the table to find Darwin sleeping. I was curious about him.
“Quien es usted?” I asked a bit hesitatingly, not knowing what else to say.
“My name is Charles Darwin,” he slurred in English, as he sat up and conked his head on the table. “I am here to do research on this island of Santiago.”
From that inauspicious beginning Darwin and I became quite well acquainted, bound together by our common interest in the natural world. We spent the next nine days hiking throughout the island by day and comparing notes by night. He was a dark, brooding young man, whose obvious sense of ambition was hampered only by a rather shiftless approach to his research. Plus, he seemed more interested in doing research on the mammary glands and flashing eyes of the waitresses at La Taverna than the flora and fauna we gathered in the field. In the following week, I worked with him, trying to develop his sense of discipline. I was able to help him narrow down his efforts, encouraging him to hone in the transmutation of species and a theory that I was developing which I called “Natural Selection.” We also spent some time on developing a diagrammatic approach to evolution which I christened the “Evolutionary Tree.” He was especially keen on examining the tortoise shells that I had collected from various neighboring islands. I pointed out the fact that the characteristics of the shells could identify what island they had lived on.
By the time he sailed away on The HMS Beagle, nine days after we had met, he was a changed man – infused with a new focus and optimistic about his future. I had become quite fond of him and I shared my notes with him and gave him all the specimens I had collected on the island. Frankly, I did not expect much to come of his efforts, for he seemed just a bit on the indolent side to me.
Meanwhile, during the nine days Darwin and I had been immersed in the purity of academic research, the Princess had been engaged in more nefarious activities. She had renamed the island Corpulencia. The word “fat” was outlawed, replaced by the more acceptable words of “corpulent,” “heavy,” or simply “large.” Pews in the front of the church were removed and replaced by larger ones. Notices were posted on the large pews: “Corpulents Only.” The Thins, invited into the castle every Sunday for church, were relegated to the rear. The restiveness continued simmering, threatening to boil over.
The menu for the coronation feast was prepared; Morcilla, chorizo, chunchullo, papas criolla, yucca, frijoles, and more. From the sea, paella would be prepared using the most succulent shellfish, including the enormous and popular sea turtles.
The day of the coronation dawned brightly. A lazy wind would do little to abate the heat. The searing heat would be inescapable. From tree shade, I watched as the Thins moved casks of Chianti and the food into the castle. The buffet would be served by Thins in the Royal Banquet Hall, under the supervision of the dressmaker Carlotta, who was gaining more responsibility since her success as a clothier.
The luncheon began at noon. The Corpulentos grazed along the buffet, eating as they walked, greedily and gleefully stuffing themselves. The Morcilla – blood sausage – was a particular favorite, as were the black beans; all washed down with copious Chianti. All the food was presented in the tortoise shells which Darwin and I had studied the week before.
By two o’clock much of the food had been devoured and the dressmaker made a decision to send the Thins back to their settlement. Meanwhile the food was attempting, unsuccessfully, to settle in the stomachs of the Corpulentos and soon the perfumed hankies were pulled out and fluttered about the noses. But they offered a weak defense to the smells assaulting the olfactory senses of the guests. Something had to be done. The always resourceful dressmaker flung open the massive door and the assembled guests poured gratefully into the courtyard, gasping for air. The relief was short-lived.
The sun had been baking down on the dark stones of the courtyard all day, making the already oppressive afternoon even worse. The health of the enormous guests, in their heat absorbing black dresses and suits, quickly approached a critical state. Some tried to leave, but were thwarted – all doors leading from the courtyard had been inexplicably bolted. Outside, from the Thins settlement, we could hear Señor Hernandez bellowing for the dressmaker – who was evidently no longer in the square – to open the doors. I started to sprint to the castle but was stopped by two Thins guarding the path to the drawbridge.
“Let them be,” one said.
“But I am a doctor.”
“Let them be,” the other repeated. “We have waited for this day.”
Before I could reply, a sharp hissing sound arose from the castle walls and we turned as one to see the screeching Princess, arms outstretched, rising slowly over the wall like a dirigible, propelled by a sputtering brown plume. Suddenly the hissing grew louder as she gained speed only to change course, smash into a parapet and explode. Burning fat and partially digested Morcilla and frijoles, rained down on the square. There were screams from inside and cheering from the settlement. She was followed in quick succession by Señor Hernandez, the judicial authority of the island, who had made an ill-fated decision to smoke a cigar and the jailer, Señor Lozano, who had innocently struck the match.
“In the name of God, I must go in,” I said to the guards. “Things will change now. The Princess is gone alomg with all the legal authority.”
No reply. They simply looked at each other, nodded in agreement, and released me.
Immediately, I ran into the castle and unbolted the massive doors leading to the square. There the remainder of the castle aristocracy was huddled together in the small bit of shade available. Many were in varying stages of undress, but for the others, clothing had tightened around them as they ate and perspired and it was impossible to remove it. Fortunately, the dressmaker organized people to help me with the rescue effort and there were no more serious explosions, though I had to treat minor lacerations caused by whalebone fragments. It was essentially a matter of helping the Corpulentos inside and hydrating them. Some of the women had to have their whalebone corsets cut off.
We all knew that governing of the island would change immediately and I met with five other influential Thins. We appointed an interim governing council and a temporary constitution was immediately written. There would be no royalty, no aristocracy. The island would retain its original name of Santiago. Grudges would be buried, along with what remained of the Princess and the other two. Moderation and harmony would once again reign on the island. Corpulence would not be rewarded or encouraged, nor would it be given special privilege, but obese people would have the same rights and respect as the others.
Early the next morning, I answered a knock on my door to find the dressmaker, her black eyes shining starkly from her haggard face.
“Come in, Carlotta.”
“Thank you, Doctor.”
“You know that you have to leave the island?” I asked, hoping that she would make this easy.
“Oh, yes, Doctor. I have been packing my trunk most of the night.”
“Where will you go? What will you do?”
“I have to find another center of decadence to sell my push-up brassieres, corsets, and other foundations. I have them packed in my trunk. The logical choice would be New York. The United States of America is becoming affluent and affluence breeds decadence – the perfect market for my products. Fat is in their future. I will try to make my way there, starting tomorrow. You know that a ship from Isabella island is stopping here tomorrow and going on to the mainland.”
“Yes, of course,” I said. Relieved, under the circumstances, to know she was leaving. We both knew there was no other choice. It was obvious she had locked the door to the square. I said nothing about my disapproval of her actions – this was not the first or last time that love had trumped principles and good sense. We looked at each other, silent. Finally, I spoke…
“I will be on the same ship.”
“Good,” she said, black eyes shining.
Tomorrow Carlotta – the dressmaker – and I will leave together. We do not know what the future will hold, but I do know that the true history of Corpulencia is contained in this document.

Sincerely,
Doctor Hector Delgado

+ + +

I took a thoughtful puff from the smoldering Cuban…
So this is how it all came about. I had known only bits and pieces of the history of our ancestors and how our family business had been founded. I closed the slim volume and returned it to the trunk, carefully slipping it behind the tear in the painting. The trunk’s mystery was gone – its power spent when its secrets were discovered. Now, it was simply a tired old trunk, somehow smaller, even more forlorn. I returned to Dad’s chair, sinking into it to pensively gaze out the window towards the Statue of Liberty, through the backward lettering that read,

]]>http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/charles-darwin-and-the-dawn-of-obesity-in-the-americas/feed/0Virtuehttp://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/virtue/
http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/virtue/#commentsSun, 15 Sep 2013 19:56:18 +0000http://www.pendulinepress.com/?post_type=author_article&p=2871
I am not a hateful person. I don’t know why Lottie or anybody else would ever have said such a thing about me. I’m strong-willed and I take action, and I don’t see anything to apologize for in that. It’s the weak among us who fall prey to temptation and sin of all kinds. I’ve seen how envy and jealousy can shrivel a person, make ‘em strike out like a snake. Take Lottie, for instance. And I will have to say that of me and Paul, he’s the weak one. I try to point things out to him, in the gentlest way, but he gets mad and stomps out on the porch and sits there in the dark with the tip of his cigarette glowing, dropping ashes on the glider.
“Paul,” I say, “if you’re going to indulge in that filthy habit, would you go away from the house!”
He knows I can’t stand the smoke curling in the screen door, and besides he’s likely to burn holes in his clothes. He goes as still as a statue sometimes, and lets the cigarette burn down right to his fingers. Manys the time I’ve had to bandage up his hand. I just don’t understand it.
On Sundays we go to the Spiritualist Revival Chapel to hear the guest preachers all the way from Lilly Dale sometimes. It’s a sweet little place with bouquets on either side of the altar sometimes, for the Flower Message Service. Otherwise, you get your messages right after the more regular—that is the more Christian—part of the usual Sunday service. I wish somebody from the other side would say to Paul that he ought to quit mistrusting people and that smoking is bad for his health. Maybe someone who’s passed on from lung cancer. Maybe that would scare him! Truthfully though, I don’t know that he really listens. I think he only goes along to keep an eye on me.
When I was young I was the pretty one. My sisters were always jealous of my beaux. Well, I had the better figure, clothes looked good on me, and the boys would come around. Lottie had buck teeth; it wasn’t her fault of course, but people teased her. She had this best friend, Nancy Dix, very plain. Thick as thieves, they were. It seems to be a law of nature that ugly people tend to make friends with their own kind. Now next door to Nancy was where Paul lived. He was a sweet boy, and he and Nancy and Lottie all played together, you know, as kids do, all the time they were growing up. But then came high school and Paul shot up to six feet tall and got handsomer and handsomer, and Lottie used to go on about how handsome he was. So one day, I overheard her conniving with Nancy. The plan was that one of them would ask him to the dance and then get sick, and at the last minute the other one would step up and volunteer to go. It was difficult to make out every word through the glass I was holding to the wall, but of course it was plain that Nancy would ask him and he would say yes out of neighborliness, and then— Well, not only did it not seem right that he would get stuck with an ugly girl either way, but the deceit! I marched right over to Paul’s house and I told him that I’d been wanting and wanting to ask him and had been too shy and wouldn’t he please go with me. Meanwhile, Lottie told Nancy that I knew of their plan, and she was so ashamed that she wouldn’t come out of her room for a week. So Paul ended up going to the dance with yours truly. Lottie got so mean over the whole thing; that jealousy is such an evil genie. Out of its bottle it makes a person go crazy! So when she snuck into my room that night of the dance and cut up all my pretty dresses and even my underthings, I knew I had to help her get over her affliction. They call it something today—rough love or tough love or— Anyway, I knew her life would be a living hell if she wasn’t able to overcome it, so, even though I had planned on giving Paul over to her, I decided to keep him for myself. Decided I’d marry him if anyone would, right on the spot of that scene of destruction I encountered when I arrived home after the dance. Did I get angry at my poor sister? No. Did I retaliate? No. I simply marched into her room and told her she’d have to learn to control her devils if she ever wanted to get into heaven and that I, her older and wiser sister, was going to help her by marrying Paul.
Convincing him was easy enough. Men are simple creatures, really. They’re so pliable, especially when they’re sniffing after a pretty girl. I let him go “all the way” just one time, and then told him I’d missed my monthly, and that was really all it took. I made Lottie my maid of honor, so as to strengthen her character. She held her bouquet up over her face so nobody could see she was crying up there on the altar, but I knew and gave her an awful pinch to make her stop. I wasn’t about to let her spoil things!
We were never blessed with children, but that’s all right. After that one time of conjugality, I knew I could not endure it again, so I put an end to all that nonsense. Truthfully, I’d rather not think about that part of my body at all. Or his. One can have a perfectly respectable Christian marriage without indulging in the sins of the body, after all. Paul didn’t seem to mind much, after he got used to it. His most enduring passions in life are his fishing rod and his books in any case. He goes off with one or two of each on a Saturday morning and doesn’t come home till dark.
“I’ve got the frying pan on,” I holler as I hear him come crunching up the driveway, but he mainly doesn’t bring home any fish to speak of. Likes to let them go after he catches them. A regular soft-hearted man if there ever was one. He’d’ve made a nice father for a little girl. Weekdays he works down at the station, taking in money and handing out tickets and schedules. Occasionally on Saturday or Sunday he might have to fill in, but he’s got enough seniority by now that he shouldn’t have to. I ask him sometimes about getting us some kind of a deal on a cross-country bus trip, but he just shakes his head in that bewildered way he has. He likes it fine right here at home, he says. I mentioned once about going off on my own to Trumansburg to see my sister Lottie and he nearly had a fit—put his foot down absolutely and said no respectable woman went off gallivanting around on a bus by herself. He’s so old fashioned in some ways, but I kind of like the fact that he’s so protective of me. He says there’s all kinds of evil intentioned men out there that would love to compromise a woman like me. That’s what I mean about him being jealous. I don’t understand what in the world he could be thinking sometimes! I know I’m still quite a handsome woman that could turn a few heads, but I really didn’t think a little bus trip to visit my own sister could be considered less than respectable. I told him I’d just stay over for a few days with Lottie, but he shook his head, said he needed me here. So I told him that passage from Proverbs 20:3 “It is to a man’s honor to avoid strife, but every fool is quick to quarrel.” And he answered me right back from Proverbs 21:19 “Better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife.” Can you imagine? I was dumbfounded. Then he stomped off to the front porch with his tobacco and his Bugler papers, and I slammed the door when the smoke came in, but it was really too warm an evening for the door to be closed. So after a while I opened it up and the smoke still lingered there, but he was nowhere to be seen.
Straightaway I telephoned Lottie, but her line was busy and busy and busy. So I got out my pieces of cloth and settled down to the quilt design I was working on, and just waited there till Paul took it into his head to get over his fit of pique and come back from the barn or wherever he’d gone to to sulk. I worried that he’d maybe gone into one of his torpors, but I wasn’t about to go out looking for him in the dark. I figured he’d get over it eventually. He always did, even if it went on for a whole night sometimes. Why, I’ve come downstairs in the morning to make up the coffee and found him sitting in one of those easy chairs in the parlour asleep awake–that’s what I call it. His eyes are open and he’s looking straight ahead but it’s like he’s sleeping. Sometimes the sound of my footsteps snaps him out of it, and sometimes I can walk right in front of him and he doesn’t stir. It’s like his mind is working on a terrible problem inside himself, and his eyes are turned in so he can squint at his own brain, and he can’t turn them rightside out again. The man terrifies me sometimes. I hate to think of what he’d do if something ever happened to me!
Of course after I do die, I plan on making my presence known and advising the poor man on a regular basis. We got going to the Spiritualists because I felt that we needed something a little different from the Baptist point of view on things, given Paul’s, well, his peculiarities. And the Spiritualists are Christian, even though some people get put off by the messages from the other side. Really, when you think about it though, it makes a lot of sense that when people die they don’t just disappear or land up in heaven completely cut off from us left here below. I find it a comfort to imagine my loved ones who’ve passed on in a kind of heaven where they can still come forward and speak to you, send you help and advice in troubled times.
I remember, not too long after we started going to the Spiritualists, the guest preacher said, “Can I come to you,” nodding his head at me. And I said “Thank you,” the way we do. And he said, “I see a woman. A middle-aged woman in an apron. She’s carrying a bouquet of flowers—does that mean anything to you?” Well, I just nodded and waited because quite often it takes several clues to get an idea of who it is, and I wasn’t sure but I wanted to encourage him. He said, “It’s someone who wants to offer you something. Her flowers. She says that it’s all over now and that she hopes you will forgive and forget, as she has done.” And I almost wept right there in the pew because I knew it was Lottie, and that she must be dead, and I forgave her stubbornness and hurtfulness right on the spot. I elbowed Paul for a handkerchief, but he wasn’t there beside me. He must’ve got up and gone out back and I hadn’t noticed, I’d been so captivated by Lottie’s presence and her message to me.
Later on I told Paul that Lottie must be dead because she’d come to me, said everything was forgiven and that she sent her love. “After she got her teeth fixed, I had wanted to straighten things out between us, but she refused to speak to me for years as you very well know,” I told him. “And she was my sister even if she acted perfectly horrible about me and you.” He just looked at me and shook his head and sputtered something unintelligible. Then he went out for a smoke. I swear, the man gets more taciturn by the hour.
I figured there wouldn’t be anyone at Lottie’s, so I phoned my other sister LuLu, who lives way across the country, even though it was a during the day long distance call. I never did understand why she left like that, and went so far away from home. She’s rather plain looking, but managed to get herself a nice enough husband. Kinda mousy and small—he was already starting to bald when they got hitched thirty years ago. I thought it would be nice—all of us in the same general neighborhood. I just assumed we’d spend our adult lives in the same town, since we’d grown up in it together, but it seemed like she and Lottie couldn’t wait to get away. It is a small town, but that can be a nice thing, the way people look out for one another. I figured they’d buy places down the road after me and Paul moved in here, into the family place. It only made sense, me being the oldest and all, and I’d have been perfectly happy to share but that it’s just too small, and we had all the care of Mama for those months before she passed on, so it seemed perfectly plain to me that we had a right to it.
Well, LuLu said that as far as she knew Lottie was alive and kicking and that that Spiritualist stuff was a lot of—well I won’t use the word she used. She kind of snickered about it, I would swear, but when I asked her what was so very charmingly funny, she clammed right up. So I called Lottie who her very own self answered the phone all bright and chipper! I was floored, as you can imagine. I told her that I had received her message and that I forgave her too, and she hung up. In my ear. Imagine! That’s the last time I’m going to reach out to her, as you can easily understand.
Two days later, I got an envelope in the mail from Lottie. I say envelope because what was in it was not a letter, as any person of normal intelligence would expect, but an obituary notice clipped from the newspaper: Nancy Dix, of all people! Turns out she was living in Trumansburg all those years. And she never married, poor girl, at least there’s no mention of a husband. But here’s the scandalous thing. She left a daughter! Name of Loretta P. Dix. Can you imagine! No wonder she never let anybody know where she was!
So now I’m off to the Spiritualists Ladies Quilting Association meeting over at the camp grounds meeting hall to work on our annual raffle quilt. I do not understand what happened at that service or who the woman who came to me that day might have been, but my faith has only deepened since that experience. It is not for us to know all things, as the good book says. Somebody forgave me and I forgave them right back, so all is well. This summer it’s a 7 Blessed Virtues quilt, and we’ll talk across the frames about what pictures we’ll use to represent chastity, charity, and all, and how these qualities have manifested themselves in our lives.
When I got home from Dorrie Yuba’s house the other evening after we decided on this theme, for some reason I found myself trying to recall the 7 Deadly Sins instead of the 7 Blessed Virtues. Then I was thinking about a design that could maybe match the virtues and the sins on the quilt (though I think that might scandalize the some of the ladies), and I found that I could only bring 4 to mind: jealousy, of course, sloth, gluttony, lust, and— Well, never mind, I’m sure the others will come to me. It occurred to me to make a spiritual inventory of the deadly sins and whether any of them might have manifested in my life, and if so to face it head on, to stamp it out with complete ruthlessness. But then I thought that might be to focus on the negative, when the preachers are always trying to get us to dwell on the positive. So I’m going to think about the 7 Blessed Virtues and the glories of Heaven instead, and say a prayer for that homely little pullet Nancy Dix.
]]>http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/virtue/feed/0Thank You for Everythinghttp://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/thank-you-for-everything/
http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/thank-you-for-everything/#commentsSun, 15 Sep 2013 19:49:08 +0000http://www.pendulinepress.com/?post_type=author_article&p=3028
When I first heard about it, I was guarding a table on the patio of Java Beach Café. It was an unusually warm morning for San Francisco, one that demanded indulgence in the rarity of a windless fog-free Ocean Beach. Our favorite haunt was jammed–dogs, bikes, baby strollers, skateboards–and the spectacle of coffee and conversation made me uncomfortable. At the next table, a trio of young men hovered together, barefoot and bare-chested, their skin shimmering with sand. They smoked Shermans and traded rumors, every word rolled in smoke.Just appeared out of nowhere.It’s growing near the de Young.Dude, it’s purple and made of stone.
Strange things were often overheard in this town. Strange things happened, even. But this was decidedly peculiar.
My husband, Ian, rushed through the swarm, balancing our bowls of oatmeal with expertise. Crowds never bothered Ian the way they did me. He thrived on throngs.
“Did you hear about the purple thing growing in Golden Gate Park?” he asked.
“Sounds pretty creepy, right? Like a tumor growing out of the ground or something.”
Ian set the bowls of oatmeal down and gave me a look. I knew it well after ten years of marriage. Impatient. Challenging. “Why does it have to be creepy? It could be pretty cool, you know. I can’t believe you were ever an art major.”
Somehow, I didn’t equate my college string sculptures and charcoal drawings with unexplainable spontaneous malignancies.
An adolescent surfer girl across from us rubbed her wet head.It’s cresting in the Music Concourse.
Her surfing companion, a woman with tattooed-covered arms and purple hair, chugged her coffee.I heard it’s ten feet high already. Maybe twenty.
Everybody was jabbering about it.
We tried to sit and eat, but soon a pilgrimage to the park began and people started taking their food to go.
“Come on, Mae. If it gets to be too crowded for you, you can always go home,” he offered.
I hated how dismissive he had become of me. “I’m still capable of imagining the intrinsic value of something,” I said. I grabbed my helmet and jumped back on my bike just as the barista hung a sign on the front door.Closed early today due to the purple phenomenon.

+ + +

We raced along the Great Highway toward the thick green canopy of Golden Gate Park.
“I’ll bet it’s because of that tower,” Ian shouted.
The viewing tower at the newly remodeled de Young Museum had created quite a stir with its bold architecture–coppery skin, a dangerous spiral, a rusty-caged beacon twisting out of the eucalyptus and palms–and now this, an inexplicable oddity growing directly under its nose. I ignored his theory. Ian loved this town for its unique events: the celebratory LGBTQ Parade, the goodwill of Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, the blatant sexuality of the Folsom Street Fair, the absurdity of Bay to Breakers. But he didn’t instill them with any meaning. He just loved their undeniable chaos.
We cut into the park at Homeless Row, just behind the empty soccer fields. Its denizens always looked menacing, enhanced by the heavy shadows of the cypress trees. It didn’t help that the Chronicle had recently detailed how dirty and drug-addicted they were. They, too, were on the move, pushing their grungy over-stuffed shopping carts, jockeying for position along the trail.I heard it’s festering already.Festering? You mean like a boil?But it’s made of stone. Can stone fester?
At this, Ian abruptly jumped the bike trail and cut across the Polo Field without a word. He was fond of such sudden moves, always expecting I would follow, but as I slowed down to scan the growing crowd I lost sight of him. Parents struggled to push strollers across the spongy grass rutted with gopher holes. Some children were hysterical. “I want to see the purple thingy!” they demanded, but the parents looked conflicted. Their faces seemed to say, “If you were older, maybe…” or “If we were younger,” and they carted their families away as fast as they could, struggling against the sun-seekers lugging their ice chests full of beer, bags of snacks and collapsible chairs up from the beach.
By the time I reached JFK Drive, a glut of abandoned cars had forced the Fulton 5 to dump its passengers. The crushing mob made me instantly claustrophobic and my feet stopped pedaling. I imagined Ian marching at the head of the procession by now. He had been a drum major in high school and had never gotten over the need to “provide proper directions and cues.” But then suddenly he was at my side, off of his bike and pulling me from mine.
“It doesn’t get any better than this,” he insisted, before dragging me into the vortex without another word.
Towers of abandoned bicycles had cropped up everywhere–in trees and bushes, stuck to hillsides, stacked like rings on lampposts and Stop signs. The jarring sound of squeaking skateboards, roller blades, and scooters collided with the thump thump thump of stilts and Pogo sticks. Ian skipped at the head of a group of college-age women chanting a sorority slogan. Enterprising young musicians sold their CD’s. A blind woman tapped her way with a gold cane. The park was filled with a curious assortment of jugglers, acrobats, magicians, and protestors predicting the end of the world.
Our chatter grew exponentially the closer we got to the hill.It’s fifty feet high!What if it’s like Godzilla?It’s the eighth Wonder of the World!
When the tower burst into view through the eucalyptus trees, a surge of energy propelled us down around the last bend of JFK Drive. The thick throng began to moo, quietly at first, but soon the guttural song was rolling in deafening waves. I mooed along, self-consciously at first, then in an off-the-chart bellowing. A cowbell clanged in the distance and nervous laughter rippled through the crowd. We were in a tizzy.
And then, there it was–a purple head rising on the hill.
The mooing faded into silence and we came to a standstill. It was much smaller than I expected, perhaps fifteen by fifteen feet, and it was bald. The head had only surfaced to just below the nose, its large almond shaped eyes and perfectly cupped ears intact. Its smooth marbled surface reflected the sunlight, projecting a kaleidoscope of patterns and colors, and my chest ached from its indefinable beauty. The crowd gawked and mumbled for a long while, unsure of how or where to put our amassed energy.
At first, the music that emanated from the head was mournful and bewitching, the notes so discordant they were impossible to grasp. I looked towards the Bandshell to make sure a jazz band wasn’t performing, but it was completely quiet, and so was the crowd. Once its rhythm and melody grew into a lyrical harmony, the crowd began to sway. Some cried. Some chanted. Some held hands. Birds were arriving in such numbers the delicate branches of the eucalyptus trees drooped from their dancing. A horde soon circled the head, straining to touch its smooth purple surface and whisper in its ears. Their sudden confessions were breathy and so intimate.I love you. Will you…Can you help me? My mother…Take me with you. I need…
Others stood at a distance, uncertain and needing more time, and still others simply laughed at the absurdity of it all.
I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.
Once past the first rush of adrenaline, the crowd relaxed and began to set up little picnic areas. They lolled and sprawled and lounged. They feasted on their bread and fruit. They reveled in the head’s presence, toasting it with their wine glasses or bottles of beer.
Ian and I had yet to mingle. He scrutinized the head intently. “I just don’t get it. It’s so weird looking,” he said. “At least, it’s stopped growing.” He squinted at it. “Do you think it’s done growing?”
Was I detecting a note of fear?
“Does it matter?” I asked. I was more concerned that we only had a couple of energy bars and one bottle of water to share. “We always leave home unprepared.”
“We just ate. How can you be hungry already?”
But I wasn’t hungry; I was ravenous and, suddenly, there seemed to be a difference. “I’m going to wander,” I said, finally, and disappeared into the gathering.
A drum circle had formed around the head, and its rhythmic beats pulsated through the crowd. I recognized a former neighbor in the circle, a young man with dreadlocks and a dancer’s body. Ely was clearly in a trance. I had seen the glazed look many times before when he practiced his mantra on the doorsteps next to our house. I had attributed it to the pot he also smoked as he drummed, and the constant rhythm had tended to annoy me.
“Mae,” he suddenly called out and waved me over to the circle. He kept me in his eye-line as he continued to caress a rhythm out of his drum, but now it sounded sweet and unbearably sensual. There was a certain equality in the shared rhythm, an inclusiveness to the circle that reverberated with such intensity I began to ache again, but this time more deeply, a response that should have embarrassed me, as Ely was at least ten years younger and gay.
Men and women of all ages, already dressed in skimpy warm weather clothing, began to undress themselves and each other, slowly at first, as if seeking approval for their sudden lack of inhibition. The drummers, who appeared nude behind their instruments, intensified their rhythms and the vibrations resonated into the crowd. That cautious kiss of a first date quickly gave way to a wild, unrelenting ecstasy; the drummers were guiding the revelers into a full-blown orgy right under the nose of the purple head.
I tiptoed through the undulating breasts and long legs, the smooth buttocks and hairy backs, the nipples and penises rising and falling with the beating of the drums. I searched for Ian among the groans and panting and squeals of the swarm. I wanted to tell him I understood now, that this was exactly what the moment called for, exactly what I needed even, but he had disappeared from view. Finally, the urge was too great and I began to disrobe. I joined the fondled and caressed, the suckled and the pinched, effortlessly fusing my body to the bliss, that undeniable euphoria that transcends care and worry and the need to judge, until after what seemed like an eternity of successive bone-chilling orgasms, my body laid limp from exertion.
When I awoke, it was dead quiet. I cast my eyes across a mass of pleasured beings and scanned the area where I had last seen Ian. A phalanx of cops navigated their way through the crowd, towards the head. No doubt someone had complained by now, but surely they weren’t thinking of trying to arrest it? An argument between two over-stimulated partakers suddenly erupted, and before anyone could stop them, one broke a bottle of beer on the purple head. The crowd, still clinging to every last drop of ecstasy, moaned in disappointment. The other bloke joined in and broke a bottle of red wine across the nose, this time following the shattering sound with a war cry.
People sat up, nudged by the presence of police, and began to gather their clothes, an arduous process, as most of us had shifted substantially. I scrounged someone’s long billowy dress just as more bottles were flung at the head, crashing into hundreds of little jagged pieces and splattering deep violet trails down its smooth purple surface. Some of the carousers began to sob and curse at it.Don’t do that again!How can I go home now?Damn you! You made me remember.
I finally spotted Ian. He was crawling out from behind a manzanita bush, partially clothed, covered in leaves and debris and wearing an odd hat with horns. A redhead in torn fishnet stockings and a Red Sox baseball cap crawled out after him looking satiated and dirty. He smiled when he saw me, though sheepish and a bit too flushed. Oddly, I wasn’t jealous, just curious. Why had they hidden themselves behind the bushes rather than join the rollicking horde in their pleasure?
By now, a riot was in full bloom. The flock had splintered into those who were satisfied and those who wanted more. One rogue gang assaulted the head by climbing the arcs of the ears and stamping on them, lacerating them until they split and tumbled to the ground. Seized by their success, the trouble-makers pummeled the head harder, jabbing the nostrils and punching the eyes, until the head inexplicably lifted off the ground. The crowd stood immobilized by the head’s betrayal; it hadn’t grown out of the earth after all! It was so ultra-light, the gang batted it back and forth like a balloon, until it fractured and broke into big chunks, its purple sheen faded, its true content revealed – Styrofoam. The hooligans dragged the remains down the hill behind them, shredding it into a trail of flittering white pellets.
Circles of people hovered around each other, crying, shaking hands and promising to call each other soon. Some kissed on the lips, others cheek-to-cheek. I surveyed the dispersing crowd, trying to recognize someone, anyone I could thank or kiss or say goodbye to, but it was still too much of a blur. One elderly woman, dressed in mismatched ill-fitting pajamas that exposed drooping breasts, attempted to console herself as she wandered from one pile of debris to another. “What do I do now?” she cried, as she wrapped a red feather boa around her neck. “Who will have me?”
As if on cue, a half-naked drummer ran up the hill. A discerning eye could recognize him as one of the rogues.An orange head is growing in Dolores Park!
Other rogue drummers quickly surrounded him.It’s up to its nose already!
And off they ran, pounding out a senseless noise.
Ian grabbed my arm, looking relieved. “Are you ready to go home now?”
The drumming filtered though the trees, sweet, rhythmic and powerful, arousal already inflaming my body, stifling my answer.
His body shivered. “You think about it. I have to pee,” he said, and off he hobbled down the hill.
I watched the dwindling mob pick its way through the discarded clothes, ice chests and half-eaten lunches, until a clunky cacophony picked up. A one-man band worked the crowd, simultaneously using his hands and feet to play various musical contraptions as he warbled a curious refrain.This one has a mouth!
This news was too great, the urge already too intense. I ran towards the public restroom looking for Ian, where I spotted him sneaking into an overgrown willow tree, guiding a scantily clad young blonde by the hand. I caught up to him just in time.
“I’m going to Dolores Park,” I said, and kissed him square on the lips, thanking him for everything.
He frowned. “Can’t you wait?” The blonde was shivering now, too. “I’ll find us some bikes when I’m done,” he offered.
“The park is across town. You’ll need to speed things up,” I said, before running barefoot in my free-flowing dress after the half-naked drummers. I hoisted an abandoned staff of giant fennel, still wreathed with ivy, and joined in the procession of cymbals and flutes. Even with the fog starting to roll in, Ian will be able to find me easily enough, in the cavalcades of exuberant young women dancing under these same trees, down these same streets as a hundred years before, Duncanesque women holding hands and moving freely past flowering rhododendron, their colorful dresses billowing as they leap and run barefoot across the meadows, the same women dancing on Greco-Roman vases in the de Young, in the bas-relief and architectural friezes of temples and tombs, the same women dancing in the retinue of Dionysus.

]]>http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/thank-you-for-everything/feed/0Pridehttp://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/pride/
http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/pride/#commentsSun, 15 Sep 2013 18:28:59 +0000http://www.pendulinepress.com/?post_type=author_article&p=2882Our little cult promises:
1. Wings at maturity with a 2. Chance to rule your own kingdomMust enjoy a subterranean work environment
Families—working together
Bound by a loyalty guarantee
To enjoy pulverizing and pillage
For your off hour’s entertainment and sport
With no adverse consequences]]>
The ad promised great things.
All he had to do was fill out the intention
to join form and mail it.

Our little cult promises:

1. Wings at maturity with a 2. Chance to rule your own kingdom

Must enjoy a subterranean work environment
Families—working together
Bound by a loyalty guarantee
To enjoy pulverizing and pillage
For your off hour’s entertainment and sport
With no adverse consequences

His pride led him into the cult
He had the power of God in his hands
He was happy to join until—
He realized he had become one of them.

The Old Crow’s Dark Eyes

This story ends with a bottle of whiskey, as any good story should. This story begins in a basement.God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
I always hated saying God, but people looked at me funny when I didn’t, despite the dedication to higher power freedom. I found myself in basements of random churches and mansions quite often in those days. I had started to come to terms with my addiction to drink and drug so I joined the ranks of Alcoholics Anonymous. The way I got there is not this story. That story is for a later time.
His name was Jo. I had seen him outside meetings before. He never stayed through the whole hour. He stood in the car lot and smoked cigarettes. He was usually wearing a Misfits t shirt, sleeves cut off, marked with paint. I imagined him a tagger. I never paid much attention to him; I didn’t want to be in those rooms so I kept mostly to myself. He was pretty enough to look at, but I never put my hand out to him. I was so afraid of making friends that I barely put my hand out to anyone.
I worked part time at Portland Bagel Works in the Nob Hill shopping district of Northwest Portland. The owner had given me a chance despite my lack of qualifications because I was in recovery. The pay sucked, and the working conditions were worse, but it was something. I was two months clean when I relapsed the first time, and I almost lost my job. Upon the promise of sobriety and hard work she gave me another chance. It was, indeed, the second chances that saved me; that saved us.
I locked up the store one evening and walked across Glisan Street to the Plaid Pantry for a pack of cigarettes. Pall Malls; they were cheap just like our boss. It was a late surge summer; the temperature hadn’t risen above the high eighties until that week. It was mid August. I could barely wear more than cutoffs and crop tops. Everything was bare skin and thin lace that summer. Jo was standing to the right of the doors into the market with another guy. His friend was well built. He had bad piercings and worse tattoos. I didn’t recognize them at first, and Jo quietly asked me for a smoke on my way back out of the store.
“Asshole,” I thought. Of course I had a fucking cigarette. He had been eyeing me through the tall windows. I handed him one. While watching him light up I noticed how attractive he was. He had a strong jaw, dark eyes, and full lips. He returned my lighter and I started to walk away.
“Hey, are you from Eugene?” Upon hearing the full volume of his voice my knees went weak. The rest of the conversation was muted. I watched his mouth move. He asked where I was from, if I “you know, kicked it with the punks downtown,” what my name was. I barely answered. I turned, flustered, and crossed 23rd Avenue to the bus stop. Bad Piercing/Bad Tattoo Friend followed behind me and sat down on the bus bench. He looked over at me, smiled, and started to talk.
“My friend is a coward. He only asked you that shit ‘cuz, ya know, he thought you were hot. I mean…you are a babe.”
I have always hated when men called me a babe. It’s always felt uncomfortable, paternal, inappropriate. Like the name caller was pissing on my leg and claiming me as his territory. While I was in my head thinking about how much I hated being called a babe I realized where I recognized them, and probably where he had recognized me. The Serenity Prayer passed behind my eyes.

+ + +

Text message read: “wut r u doin ltr?”
His text shorthand made me cringe, but he was beautiful so I let it slide. Jo and I started talking outside meetings a few nights after the Plaid Pantry run in. He came into my shop and asked for my number. He asked me for a piece of paper and pen, on said paper he wrote “gimme ur #, don’t make this weird.” That was when I should have walked away, but I had been dreaming of unzipping his pants for days and I’ve never been good with self-control.
I received this potentially propositional text message two hours before I had to lock up the shop, dump out the stale coffee, and give mixed bags of bagels to the neighborhood bums and traveling kids.
My text message response read: “I’ll be off work in two hours. Meet me here. I have bagels. Bring good coffee. I’m taking you to my house.” I’ve always been proud of my full-sentence, fully-spelled text etiquette.
Our bus ride was uncomfortable; silent. We watched each other cross and uncross legs. I fidgeted with my fingernails; pulled on chunks of hair. We might as well have torn each other’s skin off.
When we got to my house (my father’s house, another second chance thanks to my newfound sobriety) I made more coffee, packed my Pall Mall 100’s and went to step outside to smoke. He had been watching me closely, quietly, the entire time. He stood from the recliner which had once belonged to Johnny Cash and grabbed my hand. I hadn’t noticed his hands till then; they were strong. He had tattoos across his knuckles that read GRAF LIFE in Olde English lettering. Apparently my tagger identification had been spot on. The palms of his hands were rough. His fingertips were callused. He was so young I couldn’t imagine him ever having to work long enough to get his hands to this state. I wanted to grate them across my cheeks. I wanted to kiss them, taste them, and listen to their stories. These hands had tales to tell. This was not the time for telling stories though. I realized this as he smashed his open mouth around mine.
Our sex was rushed and hot. My shirt was off before we reached my room, and he didn’t wait for my underpants to fall. His fingers pulled the fabric crotch to the side; I was almost surprised he even took the time to do that. In his haste he could have easily pushed the thin lace into my body. I was sure the sweat all came from his skin, but there was really no way to tell. Both of our bodies were damp; we stuck together. He set his shaved head beneath my breasts, and I could feel his smile.
“Stay with me.” My voice cracked. I hadn’t invited anyone to stay the night with me since I had first joined the program, especially not another sober person. He declined and stood to put his clothes on.
“I just got out of prison, I live in a halfway house with a curfew, and I don’t do sleepovers.” He said this as he descended the stairs from my attic room to the living room. I heard the front door squeak open and slam shut.
It took me a long time to ask about his imprisonment. His abrupt statement was all I needed. That night we sat at opposite sides of the meeting room, we were cordial; it was as though nothing had ever happened. I still had the taste of his fingers on my tongue. It was a desperate taste; salty, erotic.
Our affair lasted longer than I think either of us expected. There were arguments that usually ended in increasingly exhausting sessions of sex. Our fights were mostly about the fact that I told my close friends about our affair. He didn’t want anyone to know, I would get my feelings hurt because I felt like he was ashamed of me, and to prove to me that he wasn’t he would seduce me out of my dented ego. We began exploring each other’s pain thresholds. My body was often bruised in shades of purple and yellow. Deep scratches traced down my back and around the outside of my thighs. My battle wounds were proof of my active and subversive sex life. The girls I went to meetings with expressed their concern; they were worried I’d relapsed or gotten into another abusive relationship. A couple of them knew I had a lover, and those few kept a knowing smile on their faces. They were worried, but they knew better than to think I’d stop. Combating with my will was something to avoid.
Work started weighing on my psyche; tending to the needs of upper-class trust fund hipsters and snobby mothers was a daunting task. Getting out of bed became more and more difficult. I made up excuses like meetings and service work to show up late and leave early. I was a terrible worker and a worse member of AA. My sponsor was failing me as a viable support system, and I began to seek solace in male members of the program. My home life was crumbling; my father wanted me out of his house, and I had nowhere else to go. Jo had finally moved out of his halfway house into a tent in his dad’s backyard and often let me sleep there. I would catch the MAX train out to Gresham and forget about making it back.

+ + +

I had spent weeks in bed with this man, naked and exposed, tracing every inch of his body with my fingers and my eyes. I was having more sex with Jo than I’d ever had with another man. Somehow it wasn’t until I had developed feelings for him and began trusting him that I saw a curious tattoo on the back of his right calf. I had seen many adaptations of this image over the years of living with a mother who was constantly active in race and gender equality movements, and seeing the reverse design as a representation of peace.
A swastika, black and bold, was etched into the skin of my lover.
“What the hell is that?” I glared into his eyes. I searched for the answer so it wouldn’t be said out loud.
“You know what it is.” He was being defiant. I was out of time.
“Yeah, I do. Now get the hell out of my shop.”
Text message read: “hey im sitin outside ur shop, cum talk 2 me. Don b mad. R u mad?”
He had only stepped out far enough to smoke a cigarette. I approached him and promptly noticed the second tattoo. It was on his wrist which was usually wrapped in a black bandana. Another proudly placed swastika.
“Yes, I’m fucking mad. Are you a fucking…Nazi? What the fuck?” I was starting to lose control of my anger. A drink was starting to sound really nice. “I can’t fucking deal with this. Especially not out here. Get moving.” He just sat there looking at me. His eyes were so clear. His beauty was distracting. Those eyes.
“Can I explain myself, please?”
Against my better judgment I let him come back inside and explain his backwards political views to me. I don’t think I listened well enough, or my selective vision was matched with selective hearing, because that night I was back in the tent. He came inside of me and kissed me like we were in love.
The first time I left him my nipples were raw and a blood vessel in my eyeball had popped. The night before we had been in the tent again, all I could think about every time he pushed himself deeper into me were his tattoos, his hatred, how the world would be a better place if he wasn’t alive. I grabbed his hand and wrapped his fingers around my neck.
“Choke me.” He pushed down. “Harder. Deeper. Hurt me.” He did what he was told. He nearly ripped my nipples away with his teeth, he slapped me across the face until my cheeks burned, I stopped breathing, and we came in tandem with my fingernails dug into his back and our eyes locked together.
On the MAX train back into town the next morning, on my way to work, I was putting on my makeup and saw that my eye had turned red; a popped blood vessel. I knew we had gone too far, and I had already begun to question his presence in my life. Despite being the only lover who could keep up with me he was nothing but a constant flow of stress. I left him and he argued. From his perspective all of our problems had been because of me. I had no reason to fight, so I stopped responding to his texts and went on with my life.

+ + +

My sobriety waned. I had lost my job, my dedication, and the taste of whiskey was too sweet to deny. Jo had relapsed as well. He contacted me after his escape from Eugene, Oregon, and he wanted to talk. I suggested we meet at my old neighborhood bar for beers, and I showed up early to finish reading my first collection of Bukowski in peace. When I saw him walk through the swinging, creaking door of Biddy McGraw’s I already knew what the night was going to look like.
His eyes were still dark; they were the eyes of a man in mourning. He ordered us beers and sat down across from me with a forced smile on his face.
“Hi.”
I wondered how much history was held in this one-word greeting. I was too distracted to care. He was as beautiful as ever and his sad eyes made me miss him even more. We talked for a couple hours; the ever-present shifty smiles and shaky hands underwrote our every word. Suddenly as though we’d both been hit by the same revelation we stopped talking and looked sternly into each other’s eyes.
“Do you want to leave here?” The words were falling from my mouth and I wanted to catch each of them, shove them back down my throat, take them back. I wanted to take the night back, to be alone with my books. Not sitting with my past.
“Yes…Yeah. I’m staying around the corner.”
We stood in his grandmother’s living room, a shot glass hit my mouth, my hair was in his hands, my pants were around my ankles, and he was inside of me. It all happened so fast. This evil: I knew I was smarter than it.God, grant me the serenity…
He was beating me, clamping his hand over my mouth.God, grant me…
I could feel him trying to break me. I knew he wanted to take my spirit from me. I fought against it.God…
We dressed quickly and in silence. His grandmother was standing in the doorway to the living room; her mouth was moving. Words like “Disrespect” and “Get Out Now” and “What Would Your Mother Say” were reverberating against the walls. We walked to his mother’s house, also in silence. I walked to the bathroom and out of the corner of my eye I saw his hand shovel pills into his mouth. He was in tears when I got back to where he was standing: in the kitchen, leaning against the counter. Above his head hung a picture of him and a girl; they were young. He looked innocent, and he had those same sad eyes.
I showed up to school with bruises like before, but this time they were matched with hangovers and I wasn’t proud. I wanted to keep my renewed affair a secret. My classmate and best friend Hatch often teased me for my indiscretions. I confided in him and most of the time he laughed.
“Stop drinking the Nazi Whiskey,” he’d tell me. “It only makes things worse, and you know it.”
He was right; I knew better, and he knew I didn’t care.

+ + +

Jo stumbled up the stairs to my room after a rainstorm. His eyes had emptied since the last time I’d seen him. His skin was as wet as the pavement. From his bag he pulled a six pack of Pabst and a fifth of whiskey. Nazi Whiskey. Old Crow. I had promised Hatch I’d stopped, but I had no ability to turn away from this man sitting at the foot of my bed.
I wrapped my legs around him, my chest pressed against his back. I ran my fingers down his arms, stopping at every bruise. I had seen these bruises on my own skin and on the skin of my junkie loves. I knew he was high; his hands shook. When he kissed me his mouth was dry.
As he peeled off my clothes a feeling of terror gripped my chest.
“Be gentle with me tonight, please,” I begged. My body was always sore for days after he left my bed. I needed to heal. He chose to ignore my request. He had never grasped my wrists so tightly. He ripped hair from my head. The skin across my collarbones bled from his nails. My cheeks stung hot every time he swung his hand across my face. Again, I cried for him to stop. Again, he ignored me. One of his hands crept into my crotch, the other wrapped around my neck. He was so high he forgot his strength. My hands held his face. My eyesight went soft. I suddenly became so sure of my death. I was coming, and I was dying. His face went black.
“Please…” was all I could hear.
I felt a teardrop fall on my cheek, I felt a rough tapping at my jaw, and I heard another plea. Desperation and sobriety poured from Jo’s voice as he begged me to not be dead. I opened my eyes and he was still there, above me, hopeless. My crotch was dripping. Indeed, the orgasms had always been groundbreaking. He began to explain what happened after I passed out. I had a hard time accepting the news of a seizure; that I had, in fact, nearly died.
“Please leave. You’ve been shooting up, don’t think I don’t know, and you nearly killed me. Get out and never come back.” The voice that came from me was not my own; it was terrifying in its conviction. For the first time I asked Jo to leave and really meant it. I still hadn’t caught my breath.
Similar to the way he walked out of my house the first time, he descended my creaking stairs and slammed the door behind him. I pulled my knees to my chest and unscrewed the bottle of Old Crow he left at my feet.

The Mollusks

When you are old and full of sleep, they stick
you in a box and sink you thirteen fathoms
deep off Florida. Un-magic kingdom
of the drowned undead, the great pacific
reefs suspend a sessile efflorescence
of retirement arcologies
till world’s-end, till stars swim in the sea,
until taxpayers rescind that immense
last dignity extending franchise into
senescence, Pilgrim, and cut the juice. When
tides turn we’re blinkered: the pearls that blue
our scalloped eyes suck death beyond reach,
flush catheters, and bless our great-grandchildren
who reinvent these golden years at the beach.

What We Have Done to Deserve All This

The fight we’d started leaving the apartment
for the couples counselor ignited
into screaming in the business district.
It still licked at us when we were invited
by the florid therapeutic hierophant
to show a bit of spite, for heaven’s sake!
We did, and he denounced us as unfit
for love, commanded that we separate.
Outside, we cried: so helpless, so abandoned,
certain no one else would have us. We kissed
and made it up, though we hated each other,
really, and would fight again and again
later, and curse and hit and cheat and twist
the knife, betray, defeat, and stay together.

unholy peridot

the nature of the beast
is green as the peridot in my
ring or perhaps darker
than that; “jealousy is an ugly
thing” you told me, dismissive of
it as if that could stave the
creature away it claws into me
arrows of desire and vehemence for
the one that was there before me i wonder
if you think about her more than me,
this creature smells of a gas spill
it rolls down me greasy rivers of self disgust
paints me an oil-soaked bird even the
soap won’t wash away the horror of what has
devoured me once and could just easily
befall me for a second time; it sounds like
nails on a chalkboard and tastes of salt brine rust
pleasurable at first until it erodes into its
aftertaste then it feels worse than the finger of death
entombing you to solitude in a womb of earth oblivion
darker than the absence of any heaven rescinded light on
nighttime grass — bury the memory of her in some
distant jar of earth, and my hatchet will be thrust into the
closet forgotten forever in some secret sea until someone else
slips into the hourglass of us, trying to divide.

yellow dance

i burn with lust
canary yellow
as the palest flames
yet all consuming
as a house-fire
you make me yearn
for more always more
of you beneath the
heavens of our love haloed
by your romance your
wounds are the only scars
i want; i only desire for
you to impale me with your
blade — let joy remember my
face for without your touch
upon my body without your loins
dancing a harmony with mine
i feel meaningless and empty
give me your purport and meaning
string your pearls around my throat
remind me what it’s like to be
human so i can recall exactly how
i hated myself all those years ago and
how i’ll always hate myself unless
you’re here to fill the voids within me
twisting my yellow into green
an envy others can be envious of.

]]>http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/unholy-peridot-yellow-dance/feed/0The Kid Up the Streethttp://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/the-kid-up-the-street/
http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/the-kid-up-the-street/#commentsSun, 15 Sep 2013 16:58:33 +0000http://www.pendulinepress.com/?post_type=author_article&p=3026
FRANKIE KANE, the kid up the street, was gaunt and pimply, with gnarled teeth and a thatch of black hair. He came from a broken family and was already a teenager when I knew him. Knew of him, that is, for I never spoke to him. I simply envied him from afar, like everyone else.
Frankie lived at the upper reaches of Freeman Avenue, less than a mile away. But we never went up there because Old Lady Jober lived nearby, and Old Lady Jober was a witch. It was said she had murdered her daughter, that dead cats were chained at the neck in her basement. Live cats roamed her property at will, and Frankie Kane could be seen playing with them.
One afternoon fire trucks roared up Freeman Avenue and we took off after them. Old Lady Jober’s ramshackle garage was on fire. It had been filled to the rafters with stacks of old newspapers. Frankie Kane stood out front with his arms folded, watching the flames. Old Lady Jober was nowhere to be found. The crowd grew steadily, and soon a member of the family—Old Lady Jober’s daughter?—appeared out of nowhere and spoke to the firemen. A few days later the house stood empty, although Frankie still tended to the cats.
We envied Frankie Kane because he owned a pony, a shaggy black-and-white Shetland that he harnessed to a two-wheeled cart to give the littlest children rides around the block. Horses were unknown in our town— except for an old nag that annually plowed our garden on Freeman Avenue—yet we all longed to have one, like the cowboys on TV. And Frankie Kane had his own pony. He kept it in a garage like Old Lady Jober’s, which he had converted to a stall and stacked with bales of hay. Whenever the pony cart went around the block, I stood by the side of the road conspicuously, trying to look inconspicuous, as if I deserved a ride as much as the littlest children. But Frankie Kane never looked my way.
And we envied Frankie Kane because he had been on television, displaying a talent for which he was known locally—puppetry. He made hand puppets all by himself, built a little stage with a red curtain, and put on comic shows for the littlest children, in a falsetto voice. He seemed to live for the littlest children. He had no friends his own age.
When Frankie appeared on television with his puppets, we gathered at our house to watch him in all his glory. After the performance, the master of ceremonies interviewed him, asking how his hobby had begun. “Oh, just messin’ around by myself,” Frankie said. Frankie Kane was always messing around by himself. He was our wonder boy, our hero. He had a pony, he made puppets, and he had been on television. And one day he was found behind his pony stall with a plastic bag over his head.
He was sixteen years old.
]]>http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/the-kid-up-the-street/feed/0It’s Only Make Believehttp://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/its-only-make-believe/
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It’s been a year today since I last saw Amanda and Jessica. I miss them terribly, like an amputee misses a severed limb. I’ve phoned them again and again but my number is blocked. Ever since the Mexico incident, which my brother and his wife blew out of proportion, I’ve been denied all contact with my girls. Anyone can make a mistake. We all deserve a second chance. But some people lack the forgiveness gene.
My husband has been sympathetic and supportive for the most part. Reid consoles me when I cry but reminds me too often to respect boundaries—Dr. Patterson’s admonition. As if boundaries could be painted in my brain like stripes on a highway.
Not only am I not allowed to speak to the twins, but Ken and Sarah instructed me to stop sending gifts as I always have on their birthday and Christmas or any time I saw something one of them would like. When they turned ten, I bought Swatch watches. One Christmas, I ordered tickets to “The Nutcracker” and music boxes; Mandy’s played “The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” and Jess’ played “The Waltz of the Flowers.” For their thirteenth birthday, I bought one-carat diamond stud earrings. After that, Sarah said she and Ken appreciated our generosity, but didn’t want me to buy the girls such expensive presents. “It’s okay,” I said. “We can afford it. “It’s not okay,” she said. “They’re getting unrealistic expectations.”
That wasn’t fair. Reid and I are able to offer Mandy and Jess opportunities they might not have otherwise. My brother and his wife aren’t struggling, but they’re not in a position to frequent designer boutiques or take the girls on ski vacations. Why shouldn’t I spoil them?
I remember the afternoon I shopped for gifts at Dottie Doolittle’s on Sacramento Street. The girls were turning eight and they were utterly identical: the same immense chocolate eyes, the same straight black hair like Ken’s and mine (not basic brown like Sarah’s), the same petulant pouts—matching miracles of birth. The only way to distinguish between them was the small mole on the bridge of Mandy’s nose that a plastic surgeon would remove when she was fourteen. Now fully grown, Jessica, at five-foot-three, is half an inch shorter than Amanda, but has slightly larger breasts.
I loved buying cute, frilly outfits for the girls. Never matching—the thought of treating them as if they weren’t individuals and didn’t have an identity outside of twinship was repugnant to me—but similar in nature and price. I browsed through racks of dresses, skirts, pants, tops. A saleswoman approached and asked if she could help.
“I’m looking for birthday gifts for eight-year-old twins,” I said.
“Oh!” she said, “You have twin daughters.”
“Yes,” I said. One. Tiny. Word.
“I’ll bet they’re lots of fun.”
“A handful sometimes, but definitely a joy.”
I felt ebullient, uplifted, weightless—a kite soaring above a sandy beach. So this is what it’s like to be a mom! I bought a lavender ballerina dress by Viva La Fete for Mandy and a yellow floral knit one by Le Top for Jess. I so enjoyed sharing the experience with the saleswoman that I added a pair of leggings for each of the girls as well.

Reid and I planned to have children when we married. Two we hoped. Mandy and Jess were flower girls at our wedding. They were five then, little dolls toddling down the aisle dressed in pale pink tulle, carrying baskets of white rose petals. I remember they gazed at me in my gown as if I were a rare bird. I was thirty-six on my wedding day, so Reid and I tried to have a baby right away. But after two years, when I still wasn’t pregnant, we met with a specialist.
Dr. Cohen did a workup on both of us. She checked Reid’s sperm count and analyzed his semen—so robust he could populate all of California. She examined me, drew my blood, and ordered tests: a transvaginal ultrasound, a hysteroscopy, a hysterosalpingogram. She performed laparoscopic surgery to scrape away endometriosis. Finally, Dr. Cohen determined I have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, a condition that affects ovulation and makes it more difficult to conceive. She prescribed Clomid pills to induce me to ovulate. After six months, when I failed to develop sizable egg follicles, we switched to a stronger medication—Pergonal—which Reid injected into my butt as if I were a pin cushion. The drug made me crazy. I wept at the slightest upset. Angered in a flash. Laughed for no reason. But the struggle was worth it, we believed, when the outcome would be our own baby. Maybe even twins, since fertility drugs increase the probability of multiple births. Like Mandy and Jess.
The girls are seventeen now. I wish I could see their latest pictures, but I’m blocked from their Facebook pages, too. Did Mandy get her hair cut? Did Jess get her belly button pierced? What did they wear to Homecoming? Do they ever look at the photos from their San Francisco trip eight years ago when we grew close as strands of DNA? I was so thrilled to get them out of Ohio, away from that economically depressed Rust Belt city I had the sense to leave. While Reid was at a dental conference, I redecorated the guest bedroom. I hired men to paint the walls and lay plush carpet. I bought twin canopy beds and matching dressers and desks. I asked my friend Lauren, an artist, to create a whimsical mural weaving the girls’ names into a scene with castles, unicorns, and fairies. I arranged armfuls of stuffed animals on the beds.
When Reid returned from Frankfurt, he did not share my excitement. “Good God, Mara!” he said. “Adults have to sleep here, too.”
“I want the girls to feel at home.”
“They don’t live here.”
“I know that,” I shouted, ignited by the Pergonal.
I decided to moderate my maternal enthusiasm around Reid. My girls, however, reacted to their bedroom just as I’d hoped. When I opened the door, they twirled and trilled with surprise.
“Ohhhhh, it’s beautiful!” Mandy said.
“It’s soooooo perfect,” Jess said.
They hugged me, one on each side—an Aunt Mara sandwich, they called it.
After the Mexico incident, Reid suggested I redo the room—a painful reminder, he said—but I haven’t gotten around to it. Sometimes, when he’s not home, I lie on one of the beds, cuddle a stuffed lion or leopard, and relive the girls’ visit. Such fun! We rode on cable cars and zigzagged down Lombard Street. We drove south to Monterey to visit the aquarium and north to Muir Woods to see the redwoods. I showed the girls how to use my camera and taught them to gauge light and balance shots. “Auntie Mara,” Amanda said, “can you buy me a camera, pleeeze?” Of course, I said. I hoped she’d become a photographer like me. We spent an afternoon at Reid’s dental office. Jessica asked lots of questions and I thought she might follow in Reid’s footsteps, maybe even become his partner one day.
We browsed through Ghirardelli Square and stopped for ice cream at the famous chocolate shop. Our server, a twentyish girl with magenta-streaked hair, poured glasses of water. The twins were huddled, debating the relative merits of The World Famous Hot Fudge Sundae versus The Golden Gate Banana Split.
“Your girls are so cute,” the server said.
“Thank you.” I said.
“They look just like you.”
“Do you think so?”
“Definitely. They have your eyes.”
I beamed. They do look like me. Not at all like Sarah.
At bedtime, I brushed my girls’ hair and massaged their feet with lotion. I tucked them in and kissed them good night, my lips pressing against their smooth, soft cheeks.
To chronicle our time together, I took dozens of photos, including a family picture of the four of us with our Golden Retriever, Amber. Once, I clicked the remote just as the dog licked Jess’ cheek. I framed a sixteen-by-twenty and hung it in the master bedroom above the bed. Reid insisted I move it to another room which led to an argument. I sent an eleven-by-fourteen to Ken and Sarah but, oddly, they never displayed it.
After Mandy and Jess left, my longing for a child grew even deeper. I experienced a metamorphosis, a palpable sharpening of my senses to all things baby as if I were a poodle or a Persian cat. In grocery stores and office buildings and restaurants, I heard cute baby coos, little lilting giggles, whimp, whimp, whimpers, cries of mwahhh, eeee, and eh eh eh. In parks and playgrounds, I smelled baby oil, baby powder, and baby poop. Everywhere infants beckoned me, beseeched me, searched for me, sought my succor and affection. Soon I would hover over my own baby’s crib as he slept. Pull up her blankets when she was cold. Hug away his hurt when he was sick. Wipe away her tears when she fell. I would comfort, caress, kiss, calm, and love, love, love my baby.

Two more years passed and I still hadn’t conceived. Reid joined Big Brothers and developed a warm relationship with a ten-year-old boy. I was chronically depressed, but every time my girls called or emailed, I cheered up. We were in touch almost daily. I knew what they wore for Halloween. I knew when they got As on a Spanish or math test. I knew what music they listened to. I knew which boys they had crushes on. I knew which friends were no longer friends. I knew when they fought with Sarah or refused to talk to her or hated her. Your Mom is so impatient, I said. Your Mom doesn’t understand you. Your Mom doesn’t trust you.

When the twins were twelve, I flew to Ohio for my twenty-fifth high school class reunion. To maximize my time with Mandy and Jess, I stayed at Ken and Sarah’s even though their guest room, which doubled as an office, was cramped and furnished with a saggy sofa bed. I spent a day with the girls at Cedar Point and we rode on six of the rollercoasters, screaming in unison. We ate waffle fries and chili dogs and fudge. At night, we watched the fireworks and picked out our favorite starbursts and chrysanthemums. Whenever Amanda or Jessica called me Auntie Mara, I wished she were saying “Mom.”
On Friday night, I arranged to drop the girls at a party on my way to a pre-reunion gathering. They emerged from their bedroom looking adorable and so grown up; Mandy in a red and white striped sun dress; Jess in a turquoise miniskirt and lacy, black halter top, her lovely cleavage displayed in the scalloped neckline.
“Where did you get that top?” Sarah barked.
“I borrowed it from Lindsay,” Jess said.
“Well, you unborrow it. You’re not leaving the house dressed like that.”
Jess scowled.
“Oh, Sarah,” I said. “That’s just the style now.”
“Mara, stay out of this!” Her words singed the air. “Jessica, go change this instant.”
She stormed to her room. Mandy ran after her.
Sarah steeled her eyes on me. “Don’t ever interfere again.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. But I wasn’t. Not one bit.
Jessica marched from her room fuming, wearing a “Hello Kitty” t-shirt.
In the car, Mandy sat in the back seat and Jess sat in front with me.
“I have a surprise for you,” I whispered. “Look in my purse.”
She pulled out the black lace top and squealed. “I love you so much!”
At the reunion, I reminisced and laughed and shared stories with my classmates. When they bragged about their children and grandchildren, I felt barren and sad. Toward the end of the evening, I remember chatting with Ellen Berko, who I wasn’t likely to see again since she was moving to London. I showed her our family photo on my iPhone and said I felt blessed to have children who were so happy and healthy.
“Do you ever have trouble telling the girls apart?” Ellen asked.
“Never,” I said. “A mother knows.”
It’s true. Mandy’s voice has a slight rasp. Jess raises her right eyebrow if she’s suspicious. Mandy lifts her chin when she walks into a room. Jess’ left pinkie is slightly bent; she broke it when she fell off a balance beam. I’ve memorized every nuance.
When I returned home, Reid and I tried another round of in vitro fertilization. Once again, eggs were extracted from my uterus, fertilized with Reid’s sperm, and transferred back. A single egg took hold and began to grow into a baby. I was elated. But Dr. Cohen warned that my hormone level wasn’t as high as it should be; the pregnancy might not be viable. I waited two weeks and then she checked again. I’m so sorry, she said. The fragile bits of baby would eventually absorb back into my body or I would require a D and C to remove the tissue. I wept for hours. Reid cradled me in his arms, my breasts throbbing from the wasted hormone surge. It took three months for my body to completely dispel the failed cells of my baby. Then we resumed injections and fertilizations and transfers for six more. Nothing. I’d just turned forty-four. Dr. Cohen said we should consider other options. She gave me a prescription for Paxil, an anti-depressant. It helped. But whenever Reid mentioned adoption, I said I wasn’t ready.

A month later, for our eighth anniversary, Reid surprised me with a trip to Paris. I wanted to invite my girls. I imagined strolling through the streets as if we were characters from “Gigi.” But Reid said absolutely not. Didn’t I realize he and I needed time alone? Yes, yes, of course, I said. What was I thinking?
When we got back, I flew to Ohio to hear about Mandy and Jess’ month at camp in the Poconos. I booked a suite at a bed and breakfast on Put-in-Bay so I’d have the girls all to myself. But Ken and Sarah wouldn’t allow Jess to go. They’d caught her smoking pot and she was grounded.
“But I’m only here a few days,” I said.
“Sorry,” Sarah said. “Jessica knows the rules.”
Mandy and I drove to the island without her sister. I was furious but helpless.
“I wish Jess was here,” Mandy said.
“Me, too. Your parents overreacted. They’re so rigid.”
“Mom goes ballistic over everything.” Mandy pouted. “I have to be super careful what I say.”
I stroked her arm. “You can tell me anything, Sweetie. I’ll keep it secret.”
Mandy smiled, sly as a fortune teller. “At camp, I made out with a counselor. He was eighteen.”
“Hmmm. An older man.”
“And Jess let a boy touch her boobs.”
We giggled together, co-conspirators.

Around Christmas, my marriage began to fray. Reid and I were in line at Regency Theatres and a woman several yards ahead waved at me. Corie from my Pilates class. I pretended I didn’t see her, but she joined us, dragging her son along. I introduced Reid and we talked about the films we planned to see. We bought tickets.
“Nice to see you,” I said, hoping to end the conversation.
“When will your daughters be home?” Corie said.
I felt clammy. Reid cocked his head to one side.
“We don’t have children,” he said. “You must have Mara confused with someone else.”
“Of course you do! Mara showed me their pictures.”
I grabbed Reid’s arm and tugged him toward the door. “I have to go to the restroom. Find seats.” A few minutes later, I settled in next to him. He glared at me.
“What the hell was Corie talking about?”
“It’s nothing. I may have referred to Mandy and Jess as my daughters accidentally.”
“Accidentally?”
“It won’t happen again.”
The trailers started and I focused on the movie screen. I switched to another Pilates class and never saw Corie again.
In February, we hired a new housekeeper, Lupe. She admired a picture of the girls. “Your daughters—bonita! How old?”
“Fourteen,” I said. “They’re at boarding school.”
Lupe had a fourteen year-old-daughter, too. And three sons.
Every week when she came to clean, Lupe and I traded stories about our teenagers. I bragged about Jess’ gymnastic tournament and Mandy’s watercolor project. She reported on her oldest son’s soccer games and shared plans for her daughter’s quinceañera party; Lupe was working extra hours to save up money. I gave her a raise.
One day I got home after a photo shoot and Reid confronted me as if I were a criminal. He’d returned early from work while Lupe was still cleaning.
“Mara,” he said. “Lupe thinks Amanda and Jessica are our daughters.”
I felt cornered. “She. . . she assumed and I didn’t say otherwise.”
“You tell her the truth or I will.” His voice pierced me like a syringe. “Do you even know what’s real anymore?”
I glared at him and escaped to my studio.
That night, in bed, as I was drifting into sleep, Reid gently massaged my shoulder.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you.” He kissed my neck. “Y’know, it’s not too late to adopt. Let’s meet with that agency the Wagners used.”
I twisted toward him. “What’s the point? We’ll never find twin girls. Never find children as remarkable as Amanda and Jessica.”
Reid stared at me as if I’d just strangled a puppy. “We need to see a therapist,” he said. “I’ll get some recommendations.” He turned away.
The next morning, I told Reid I’d acted crazy because I’d stopped taking my Paxil. A lie. I’d be fine, I promised, once the med kicked back in. And I’d think about adoption. I switched Lupe to mornings so she’d never run into Reid again.

When the girls were sixteen, I started planning for their future. I investigated colleges and requested brochures for the ones I considered most promising. Ken thanked me for taking an interest, but said Amanda and Jessica would attend state schools in Ohio and that was that. The girls had their hearts set on Northwestern, near Chicago, where Jess’ boyfriend was a freshman.
When I spoke to her, she was depressed. “I wish we could go to Northwestern, but Dad said we can’t afford it. If only there was some way. . . .”
I heard her longing. I pictured her beautiful brown eyes tearing. I told Reid I wanted to pay for tuition.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” he said. “No way!”
“Jessica is miserable. I hurt for her.”
“She’s taking advantage of you.”
“That’s not true.”
But Reid wouldn’t budge. As a consolation prize, he suggested the girls join us in Puerto Vallarta for a week during Christmas break. At first, Ken and Sarah said no, but Mandy and Jess double-teamed them until they relented. The vacation was glorious. Until the incident. We snorkeled, parasailed, and zip lined across the tropical canopy. (The girls are adventurous, like me.) We lay under palapas on the beach and I rubbed their backs with sunscreen and spritzed their faces with cool water. A couple of times, Jess got pissy and said they wanted time on their own. Once Mandy shrugged my arm off her shoulder, but I didn’t take it personally.
On our final night, we ate dinner at Daiquiri Dick’s and watched the sky turn mauve as the sun slipped behind the silhouetted Sierra Madre Mountains. We munched on chips and salsa and guacamole. Reid and I sipped mango margaritas.
“Wouldn’t it be great if we could always be like this?” I said. “The four of us together here in Mexico?”
“Yeah,” Jess said. “Sun all the time.”
“We could rent a house on the beach,” I said. “You girls could study Spanish.”
“Si, Tia Mara!” Mandy said.
“I’ll take photos of the locals. Reid, I bet any practice here would love to hire an American dentist. Wouldn’t that be paradise?”
“Mara. . . ,” Reid was stiff, alert, like the iguana we’d spotted earlier along the hotel’s lagoon.
“Relax, Reid. I’m just fantasizing.” I raised my glass. “Salut!”
“Salut!” He smiled and kissed my tanned cheek. He didn’t know I’d already implemented a better plan.
The next morning, during our breakfast of huevos rancheros and pancakes, I broke the news.
“I have a surprise for you,” I leaned toward the girls. “A wonderful surprise.”
Mandy licked syrup from her fingers. “Ooh. What is it?”
I paused to heighten my girls’ anticipation. A warm breeze tickled my neck.
“You’re going to live in San Francisco with Uncle Reid and me.”
“You’re so funny, Aunt Mara,” Jess said. She shooed a black bird off the table.
“It’s true. I cancelled your tickets to Ohio. You’re flying home with us.”
“What are you talking about?” Reid said.
I ignored him. “I enrolled you in school. A top-rated school, not like yours.”
The girls turned to each other with twin looks of alarm.
“We graduate next year,” Mandy said. “We don’t want to change schools.”
“Our friends are there,” Jess said.
“Don’t worry. You’ll make new friends.”
“I’m a cheerleader,” Jess said. “No way we’re moving.”
“Mom and Dad would never let us anyway,” Mandy said.
“They’re selfish,” I said. “They don’t love you like I do. You belong with me.”
The girls stared at me as if I’d grown fangs but I rambled on. I said I’d signed up Mandy for classes at the Museum of Modern Art and Jess for gymnastics and bought season tickets to the ballet and passes for a Bay cruise and we’d go to the Gilroy Garlic Festival and the Monterey Jazz Festival and tour Stanford where I had a friend on the faculty. When I stopped gushing, Amanda and Jessica were silent. They’d curled toward each other as if protecting themselves from a hurricane.
Reid clamped his hand on my arm. He spoke slowly and calmly. “Honey, let’s go to the room now. Girls, go sit by the pool. I’ll fix everything.”
They scrambled from the table. I’m not certain what happened after that. I remember I started to shake and Reid held me tight. Did he think I’d erupt like El Popo? On the way to the airport, the four of us hardly spoke. I could tell Reid was strategizing but would wait until we got home to discuss what needed to be discussed. When I tried to hug the girls good-bye, they wriggled away as if I had malaria. The flight to San Francisco was delayed and we didn’t arrive home until after midnight. We went straight to bed.
In the morning, Ken called.
“The girls told us what happened in Mexico,” he said. “Sarah and I think it’s best you don’t see them for a while. Until you get a grip. Until you get some help.”
“No!” I screamed. “You can’t do that! What about what they want?”
“They’re afraid of you.”
Sarah yelled into the phone. “I don’t want you anywhere near my kids!”
I heard muffled conversation then Ken’s voice again. “Sarah is very upset, Mara. And so am I.”
I dropped the phone. I started to cry. I wilted into Reid’s arms. “My girls,” I sobbed. “My girls.”

Dr. Patterson says I’m making progress. I’m grieving. I’m mourning the loss of my dreams. I am unable to have children. I inappropriately transferred my longing for a child of my own to Amanda and Jessica. I suffered a kind of psychotic break. I realize I am the girls’ aunt. I am not their mother. I acknowledge their bond with both their parents. I know that Ken and Sarah are loving and supportive and have given their daughters a rich life. I understand healing is a process. I hope to continue to expand my perspective. I believe, in time, the girls will gain perspective, too, and appreciate my intentions. I acted out of love and want the best for them always.
At night, I lie in bed wrapped in memories of the girls and the experiences only we’ve shared; private, transcendent moments that warm me like chai tea. The first time we skied together; Mandy earnest and competitive, focused on form, Jess giggling every time she fell. Shopping for clothes; Mandy modeling all the outfits and Jess evaluating, because what fit one twin would fit the other. Eating lunch at a Thai restaurant; Jess, the more daring sister, tasting the food before Mandy tried it, assuring her it wasn’t too spicy. The two of them bickering in stereo as we drove down Highway One. “I’m smarter,” Mandy said. “I’m prettier,” Jess said. I laughed, my spirits cresting like a wave at Big Sur. “You’re both smart,” I said. “You’re both pretty.” The two of them falling asleep on the sofa, cozy bundles cuddling next to me, Mandy’s head in my lap, Jess’ resting on my shoulder, their steady breathing as reassuring as the tides.
]]>http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/its-only-make-believe/feed/0Everlasting Lovehttp://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/everlasting-love/
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On Hollywood Boulevard, behind the Red Carpet rope, a throng of adoring, fawning fans applauds and whistles, and she, his greatest admirer, his truest love, her hair striped pink for the occasion, her hands fidgeting in the pockets of her fake fur jacket, her eyes laser-focused on the parade of beautiful people invited to the premiere of his film, though none as beautiful as he and, there he is! finally! stepping from the stretch limo, regal in a slate gray suit, a pewter shirt, and a plum tie (although not the tie she’d sent him for his birthday), his eyes smoky blue, his smile aglow with fame, his body delicious and destined to meld with hers for eternity as she’d proclaimed in letter after letter after email after phone message after Facebook post after Twitter tweet, all of which affirmed their psychic connection, their spiritual twinship, including her last message, which promised she’d be at the opening even though he’d secured a restraining order against her after she climbed the fence behind his house, after she slept on his tennis court, after his maid called the cops and they dragged her away and charged her with trespassing, which made her furious, yet she forgave him because she knew he was just testing her devotion, which she accepted until he started dating that skinny bitch Dutch model and she warned him to stop or else, but there she is, that slut, slinking out of the limo behind him, grinning, her collagen lips swollen like a guppy’s, and he holds her blinged-out hand and he waves and waves at the crowd and turns his head here and there as the paparazzi snap their picture, and now they’re just five feet away and she can almost touch him, and he waves again and he scans the crowd and he looks right into her eyes, she’s certain, and he receives her telepathic message (she’s certain of that, too), her message of everlasting love, so bittersweet: You’re mine, you’re mine, you’re mine.
Calmly, from her right jacket pocket, she pulls a gun.
]]>http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/everlasting-love/feed/0When You Die / When You’re Deadhttp://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/when-you-die-when-youre-dead/
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When You Die

Dear Wife,

When you die, you’ll be so incredibly thin.
It happens that way, I know. Your liver stops working. Your body is a sin. Mine’s nothing now. It takes only a strong wind to lift me from my chair.
Like that gust of a woman you call your mother. She picked me up from the kitchen table where I rested, carried me over to the couch.
I could have killed her for that.
If my body would have let me.
You see, honey, when you die, your mouth won’t take in what it needs. All the nourishment your body wants will be replaced by drugs the FCA is still only considering.
I said to your mother, Sue, what are you doing? Put me down.
She looked at me, a crumpled body in her arms, said, Oh Daniel, I’m moving you somewhere more comfortable. Now be quiet and let me do it.
When you die, you’re so insulted. Everything stings, in-laws, needles, warm smiles and hellos.
I know. It happens.
Your parents, friends, family, foes, all of them visit, treat you like you’re nothing more than your worst fears, a sniveling child, groping for help, tugging at the coat of anyone near, asking, Please, make me safe for years and years.
But you won’t have that. Not even months.
Sue? Are you here? Someone? What time is it?
On the couch, after your mother left, I cried because no one was home.
Not our daughter.
Sara? Honey?
Not our son.
Jason? Please, what time is it?
An empty house sounds the same as a six-foot-deep hole. It scares you, the walls, the lack of people. You hear dirt being thrown on the roof, footsteps walking away in the rain. It makes you crave company.
You’ll understand when the time comes, how you surround yourself with hugs and hellos, offers of medical marijuana and talk of the weather.
My kids, your kids, they’re mad because of the visits. It’s not fair, they say, all these people want to see you.
Learn to share.
When you’re two feet in grave, up to the shins, you notice your friends come to say goodbye. They never say it, not to you. So it’s, See you soon. Stick in there. It’s a light clasp on the back, a call if you need anything hug.
Can I give you a hug?
And while they visit, while you say, Yeah, go ahead, hug me like there’s no tomorrow—your friends begin to think it’s rude too, that they’re taking you away from what’s important. Because time with anyone who is not your family is time you can’t hold your daughter against your weak chest.
So when you die, your friends won’t be there.
Not one.
But you’re not alone. Not yet.
Near death, still holding on, you whimper while your better half cries. Those tears are martyr holy water. They’re hate drop by drop. And though they pain you at first, you watch them roll, fall off her cheek, the neighbors’ nervous laugh, the parade through the kitchen, the talk as if you can’t hear them.
You’re so strong to be doing all this, they say.
But not to you.
They don’t even whisper when you die.
I know.
And when you cough in the warmest weather like winter’s around the corner and your sides are thin metal ribs rusting away, you’ll be so close, so incredibly angry at the comments your neighbors make, even if you never hear them, because those are the comments that wake you in the night, make you glare at the person asleep next to you, think—Keep breathing, champ.
In bed you stare at the ceiling, afraid to close your eyes. You think, This could be the last time I’m awake. So you never sleep until it’s over. Not until someone shuts your eyes. When you die, you’re too afraid it’ll be the last time you see anything at all, so you never close them.
Never.
Instead you stand in the doorway of your daughter’s room, stare at Sara like she’s a holy ghost underneath a white linen shroud, her purity blanketed, protected, until a thief in the night, who you won’t be there to stop, lies, steals it away along with her panties.
When you gulp air like a fish dying on the beach, there’s another reason your eyes stay wide-open. Because if you can’t watch from Heaven, you know you won’t see a thing.
And besides, with your imagination, if you shut them—the attorney fees, car accidents, Jason’s fistfight, Sara’s wedding, your better half in bed with the neighbor.
Either way, closed, opened, when you die, you’ll be as quiet as a…
Spouse.
Parent.
Friend.
100 dollars won’t even save you from the cancer you contract from the sun. Because your death doesn’t believe in materialism. It’s the quiet, simple things in life it takes from you, like your children sleeping and strawberry ice cream.
It’s soundless when you die. I know. You won’t make a squeak, not across Jason’s floorboards after you kiss him goodnight, not when you shut Sara’s door—because when it happens, you go to it without a word. You sit in your family room and you don’t watch TV. There in the dark, you think, what kind of mess is this? Shouldn’t I end it, go back upstairs, tell the person sharing my bed I can’t?
And without the lights on, really, it’s like your eyes are closed anyway. Seems like there’s nothing left to do. And that’s how you do it.
That’s the secret.
When you die, you do nothing at all. When the lungs quit, the heart no longer measures time. When nothing counts, nothing happens. You don’t live.
You die.

+ + +

When You’re Dead

Dear Daniel,

When you’re dead, I’ll come into your house, collect your things in a burlap sack, and tell your wife you never loved her. I won’t even jimmy the window because—you know why. She leaves it open, undoes the lock—just for me.
Gail loves me, Daniel.
Every Sunday night.
While you attend midnight vigils, grasp at life like it’s an old lover, and plan whether you ought to let your brother speak at your service, I’m waiting in the woods, behind the pine trees creeping on the edge of your little piece of property.
I’m there watching for Gail’s signal, a bathroom light, on and off again.
Because when it’s over, when you’re dead, buried beneath a drooping sycamore, inside an expensive wine wood box lined with cheap ruffled silk—there is no vigil for you to attend, Daniel.
There’s nothing.
Nothing left.
Nothing except.
The biggest ceremony of all.
Your funeral—is my birthday. That wondrous occasion will be preceded by a viewing that will go long into the night, and I won’t be there.
Neither will Gail. She’ll leave early, excuse herself because of the sadness and come home to your house where I’ll be waiting. I’ll take her grief, wrap it up in my alive arms and help her with a jar of peaches. I’ll twist the lid right off, something you could never do. She’ll cry, say, “Do you think it’s wrong? Am I awful?”
She’ll cry because of you—but more so because of the children. “What’ll they do?” she’ll ask me. “Do you think they’ll look to me now to be the good one? The one with all the answers?”
I’ll hold her tight for you, look her hard in her soft wet eyes.
“He was a saint to them, you know,” she’ll say, “Christ, I can’t do this.”
I’ll let her cry. All night. Against my chest.
She wants to get on with her life, Daniel—as terrible as that is.
So, I’ll tell her, “That’s not wrong, Love, to want to live.”
That’s true, isn’t it, Daniel? It’s not really that terrible is it? To want that?
And do you know, Daniel, what I’ll be putting in my burlap sack while she continues to cry, standing there in your bedroom?
You do, don’t you?
Memories. The ones of you and your mother. Memories of trips to Ocean City with your kids. That picture of you holding Jason above your head. Even the one where you look like you’re not paying attention at Sara’s dance recital.
I’ll be putting you in there, into my bag, all the way to the tippy top.
I’ll tie it close, swing it over my head, let it land in the back seat of my Lexus, right on the black leather seats where Gail loves to make out because it feels like hundreds of dollars—my hand on her thigh—because it feels like the last two years—my lips on her neck—because it feels like being alive.
When you’re dead, I’ll tell Gail, “It’s no problem, Love, I’ll put this all in storage until you’re ready. It’s hard to know what to do with this kind of stuff.”
I’ll ask her for the security code, as if I didn’t already have it written down on a cocktail receipt in my wallet.
On my way to the storage garage, I’ll stop at the bridge, let the bag drop, plop into the water, listen to the splash like a farmer does after he throws his burlap sack stuffed full of unwanted puppies into the cool water of his favorite swimming pond.
Just like that, Daniel.
And in the storage unit, I’ll take what’s good enough to keep, try on your watches, that two-button blazer, the navy one you used to wear in college when Gail was still attracted to you.
It fits me, like your house, your wife, your kids.
It fits me so well.
When you’re dead, delivered to a hole in the ground by your brother and his two sons because your little Jason and sad tiny Sara are too young to carry your heavy weight—don’t wait for her. Not your wife, not Gail, don’t leave any room for her to be dropped down beside you for the rest of eternity.
It’s not going to happen. She didn’t mean that promise. Not that one.
When you’re dead, Daniel, when you’re beneath a marble stone marker stating how long and who you were at one time, I’ll drive back to where I left her, re-introduce myself to your kids, say “I’m a close friend of the family.” I’ll sleep there for the first time, right after your oldest closes her eyes.
And in the morning, I’ll be there for Jason’s eggs and toast.
And that next night, after that first dark day you’re gone, I’ll re-introduce myself again, this time as an even closer family friend, a close, close friend of their mother’s. I’ll sit next to them on the sofa, inches away from their legs.
When you’re dead, Daniel, I’ll come inside. I’ll sit in your house and be everything you never knew I could be—for Gail, for Sara, for Jason—for me—so alive and willing to be you.
Now that you’re gone.
Now that you’re not you.

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Dusk was falling when Chris finally caught them. The miserable day was nearly done. Last to arrive, he was bone tired and wanted to sleep, but he wanted dinner even more. He had seen the twinkle of their campfire not long before he reached the island, his canoe grinding to a stop on a final hidden sandbar; he had to clamber out and drag it the last hundred feet through ankle-deep water. His feet sank in the muddy sand, his sneakers were filled with it, but he no longer cared. He just wrenched each foot from the sucking bottom and plodded forward, finally dragging his canoe onto the island, out of the river’s reach, then throwing himself down in the gathering dark, on dry ground again.
Snatches of their chatter drifted to him. His shoulder muscles, his arms were screaming. He never wanted to rise from his heap on the edge of the island, but he had to put up his tent while there was still some light. And he was starving.

+ + +

“I’ve never been on an adventure like this,” Martha had said with the innocent sparkle that popped into her words sometimes. All huddled at the put-in point that morning, hands deep in pockets and arms held close to their sides as they tried to ignore the chill. The prospect of a day on the water daunting and possibly unpleasant to most of them; it had sounded much more fun around the conference table at the office. The paved road they’d come down had given way to gravel and finally to dirt that disappeared into the river before them. The battered metal canoes were lined up and packed with their gear, ready to launch. Mackie and Eric were the last to arrive, as expected, so the group didn’t get on the water as soon as Danny had hoped.
Danny, perpetually upbeat, looked at his watch as they waited. He’d volunteered to organize the trip since he’d suggested it. That was Chris’ first staff meeting as supervisor. No one was sure of their changed relationships, and he thought the meeting had come off surprisingly not terrible. Even Mackie kept himself under control then, though no one expected that to last, least of all Chris. Corporate said it would help pay for monthly team-building, in part to ease the transition of the new boss, and when Chris reached that point on his agenda, Danny spoke first. Chris hadn’t been on a float trip since he was in Scouts a decade before. Those had been on fast-running, clear Ozark streams, not the sluggish, muddy water of the Kaw. But the Kaw River was close to the city; everyone could manage it. And when Danny suggested camping overnight on a sandbar – he’d done it a half dozen times himself – he was so caught up that no one wanted to deflate his enthusiasm. And so the department found itself waiting on the banks of the river that Saturday morning, ready to set off on an overnight float but unable to get started, looking to Chris for direction. He quickly deferred to Danny who actually knew what he was doing.
Danny had lined up their equipment beside the road: the tents, the coolers of food and beer, all of their personal things mostly in trash bags. He parceled it out evenly so no one’s canoe would be weighed down with too much gear. And though everyone had already paired up for partners, Misty made a last-minute, giggling defection to ride with Willy and Pete. So Danny shifted some of their gear into Chris’ canoe since he no longer had a partner.
Chris knew what was going on. Misty would certainly have more fun with Willy and Pete, but what was left unspoken was that without her, his canoe wouldn’t ride as low in the water. It was already going to carry the weight of two with just him in it. Misty was trying to be nice in her indirect way. He knew that much; they all did. Everyone was polite enough not to discuss the purpose of the new arrangement, and about then Mackie and Eric had arrived, so they were finally ready to get underway.
Danny waded directly into the water, holding his canoe steady while Martha stepped into the bow gingerly, her natural caution mixed with genuine excitement. All of the others got themselves launched behind Danny, their new leader for the weekend, but when Chris plopped into his canoe and attempted his first stroke, his paddle scraped across the sandy bottom and his canoe did not move.
“Try to stay in the channel, everyone,” Danny shouted from ahead. “The water will be deeper there.” Chris watched as the other canoes drifted away. He sat mired on the bottom, and he tried to urge his canoe ahead by pushing his paddle into the sand and leaning on it. Only inches. Finally, he stepped out of the canoe and walked it into deeper water, the first of many times. By then the others were already strung out ahead, the way it would be for the rest of the day. He could see their canoes dancing through the eastern light glinting off the water.

+ + +

Now Chris lay in the sand. He didn’t want to get up, ever, but his stomach growled, and there was still his tent to pitch. So with his screaming muscles he pushed himself from the yielding sand and sought the tent he had lashed in his canoe. Long years had passed since he’d used the tent, and he had set it up in his parents’ back yard a few days before to be sure all of the poles and stakes were still there. It came back to him after a few fumbling moments, so on the island he managed to pitch it in the gathering dark without much trouble. Far from the others so his snoring wouldn’t keep them awake. He didn’t need that added to the department fodder. Yet when he opened the tent to throw in his sleeping bag and other gear, he kicked in a spray of sand. Inevitable.
He didn’t know what else he had carried in his canoe – Danny had given careful thought to what he shifted when Misty defected – but it didn’t look as though they needed any of it just then. No one had hurried over when he arrived to fetch anything. Among the various bags he’d carried was another tent; someone was going to need that soon, but they could find it themselves. He staggered back to his canoe, his feet twisting and sinking in the island sand, and grabbed a couple of the dry bags to carry over to the fire. Martha was suddenly at his side.
“I came as quickly as I could. Let me help.” She took one of the bags then led him to the fire. Up the river to the west the sun was setting with last shreds of a purple blaze, but Chris was too tired to notice, and the rest of them were too far along to care. Someone knocked down the logs of the towering fire; it sent a shower of orange sparks into the night. Silhouettes of people before the flames. The smell of wood smoke.
“Didn’t think you could miss us if I made the fire big enough,” Mackie said, holding a piece of driftwood in one hand and a beer in the other. He threw the wood onto the fire. Chris dumped the bag he was carrying next to the others.
“Careful,” said Danny. “Our breakfast is in there.” But he didn’t sound too worried.
A few of them were sitting in folding chairs. Where had they packed those? Where had all of the baggage been? One of them would probably get up and offer him a chair, but he knew that if he sat in it, the feet would sink deep in the sand and he’d look ridiculous; probably topple out of it. Better to get seated on his own quickly and avoid that whole awkward situation. He’d have to sit cross legged in the sand, if he could manage it, and his legs would fall asleep, but he didn’t want to get up once he was down, and he didn’t care anymore. He was tired. He was hungry. His shoulders hurt. His hips hurt. He wanted a beer. The first day was finally over. One more day and the trip would be over. He was not having fun.
At the edge of the firelight he saw the coolers lined up, and he eased over. Inside the first he found a few cans of pop and many cans of beer sloshing around in the remains of the ice. Grabbing his second beer of the day, Chris realized that if he dragged the cooler closer to the fire, he could sit on it. A solid seat with a broad base. Perfect. He could sit down and never get up, except to get more beer. He’d been sitting in an unsteady canoe all day, but he was constantly pushing himself out of it to drag the canoe into deeper water. It was time to sit and not get up for a while. He’d earned it.
Kim and Martha sat across from him, sharing quiet words. Martha held a beer in her hand. So alcohol did pass her lips. So sweet and so good. The angel of their office. Had she ever done anything to be ashamed of? Could anyone really be so good?
Beyond the firelight he could hear Misty giggling. “You are so bad!” she squealed, and he guessed she was speaking to Willy or Pete. Probably both. Chris pulled on his beer and felt his aching muscles begin to relax. A few more beers and a promised steak and maybe the insults of at least one day would drift away.
“Looks like the coals are ready,” Danny said as he poked the fire with a piece of driftwood. “Time to put the steaks on.”
Mackie brought over the grill and balanced it between a big log and the pile of rocks Danny had arranged. Rocks on a sandbar? Where had those come from? Chris figured he should probably know about such things, but his outdoor adventures were just memories, selectively tinted with the golden light of his youth. He dropped his empty can on the sand and rose from the cooler to get another beer.
A dozen steaks sizzled on the grill. In a minute everyone was gathered around the fire. A few flashlights were trained on the steaks, but it was hardly necessary. Once they were sufficiently cooked they would be pulled from the grill and devoured. And then more would be laid on. Plenty for everyone. A bag of chips was passing around, but when it reached Chris it was mostly crumbs. He held the bag to his mouth and tilted his head back, pouring it in. Some of it went down his shirt.
He closed his eyes and felt the exhaustion of the day mingle with the mellowing of the beer. The fire toasted his face and the front of his legs. Voices murmured and the coals hissed, but he wasn’t listening. He smelled smoke and cooking meat and always the wet, fecund smell of the river. Once or twice the beam of a flashlight swiped across his face, but all anyone saw was what looked like a contented smile. The beer was doing its job, taking him out of himself for a while.
By the second bend in the river that morning, Chris felt the first twinges in his shoulders, and he gave up any hope of staying with the pack. They had drifted ahead, staying in the current without effort, while he struggled for every inch. It seemed like that. When he did find the channel in the murky flow, when he thought he might make some time and get closer to them, he still had to paddle constantly. It was always work to keep moving forward. Everyone else made it look easy. Why did he always have to struggle? Danny could read the river. He knew how to work it to his advantage. But Mackie and Eric? How did they manage it? “Remember, everyone,” Danny had shouted when they started. “It’s not a race. There’s no prize for getting there first.” Soon all Chris heard were snippets of laughter that drifted upstream, the others’ canoes just colorful dots on the water far ahead.
Chris had two large pockets in the vest he wore. He’d packed them with Milky Way bars: a half dozen for each day. Snacks and a little quick energy from the sugar. He needed to stop eating that way, he knew that, but a weekend float trip was not the time to begin.
After an hour he’d lost sight of them altogether. He was a seasoned canoeist, not as much as Danny obviously, but experienced with a paddle. He assumed that was why they felt they could leave him behind. That and the inevitable way people just drifted along, mostly heedless of anyone else.
“There’s Chris!” Misty shouted when he had come around a bend midway through the morning. The other canoes were pulled onto a sandy beach. They had waited for him to catch up. He saw a few beer cans and a chip bag on the ground among them, and he watched Willy pour a half bag of chips onto the sand and then crumple the bag and drop it. As he drifted up to the beach, the others were already getting into their canoes and pushing off. Waiting for him to catch up did not include waiting for him to rest up as well. He had his bottles of water, and he still had two of his Saturday candy bars left, but he wanted some greasy chips, and he figured it wasn’t too early in the day for at least one beer. But off they went, with all of the snacks and beer in their canoes. He wondered if that was part of Danny’s thoughtful rearrangement of the gear too.
Lunch wasn’t much better. By the time he reached the sandbar where they had pulled out, the gang had eaten most of the sandwiches. They’d left only one for him, which he ate in three bites, and a greasy napkin holding some Doritos. They had one beer for him, already warm from sitting on the sand waiting.
The outfitter had described the approach to the perfect island for their overnight, but no one was exactly sure where it was. Even Danny admitted he wasn’t certain since the features of the river changed so much. Thus Mackie and Eric volunteered to go ahead and find it. Soon Misty, Willy, and Pete had their canoe in the water too. Chris begged them all to linger a bit so he could rest, but off the two canoes went. He lay in the sand, staring at the empty blue sky, never wanting to rise again. He heard the snap of a trash bag being opened. Someone was cleaning up this time. Chris figured he should help, so he rolled onto his stomach then pushed himself up. He stumbled across the soft sand to where Danny was. On the way he bent to grab a napkin, but the breeze sent it tumbling toward the water. He didn’t chase it.
But the day was done now and he sat on his cooler before the fire, gorging himself on the smell of the steaks cooking. They would burn but he didn’t care. He would devour his and gnaw on the bone to get every crispy ounce of gristle and fat. When he opened his eyes he saw Martha stabbing a steak from the grill and sliding it onto a plate. He could have crowded up with the rest of them and gotten himself a half-raw, half-burnt steak right away, but he knew that was not the right behavior for a fat man. Despite his hunger, his exhaustion, despite all of the beer in him, he still retained some dignity.
Someone passed between him and the fire; he felt sudden coolness sweep over him. It was Martha, holding a plate with the cooked steak before him.
“I don’t want you to think I’m trying to curry favor with the boss,” she whispered. “But you looked so tired.”
Had she really brought him the first steak off the grill? He screwed his beer into the sand and accepted the plate. She gave him a napkin and a half-full bag of chips.
“Hardly the boss,” he said, delirious from the smell of the meat. “I just check your reports and pass them up line.”
Even if she weren’t already married with two little boys, Martha was out of his league. She was maybe his age, but she was a pixie. Her husband took her to Royals games and the ballet. She sent Chris postcards from places like Malta and Barbados.
“Enjoy,” she said. Maybe she smiled at him, but he couldn’t tell in the darkness. All he could see was the nimbus of her short hair backlit by the fire.
The plastic knife and fork Martha had given him didn’t work very well on the paper plate; he didn’t have much lap to balance it on. Finally, he just took the steak in his hand and tore off a piece with his teeth, washed it down with a gulp of beer, then followed with a handful of chips. He finished his dinner in a couple of minutes, and he threw the bone into the darkness, hoping to hear it hit the water. But he had no arm and it fell short.
There would be more steaks than takers, he knew, but he wasn’t going to get himself another in front of everyone. Rolled up with his dry clothes was a plastic box full of chocolate chip cookies. And he still had two of Sunday’s Milky Ways left in his vest after a late, famished raid on them. He poured the last crumbs from the bag of chips into his mouth and opened another beer. Then he collected his trash and carried it over to the fire. The plate flared up, but the chip bag and plastic utensils just shriveled and smoked. He’d lost the napkin.
Kim stumbled through the group, handing out beers and veering close to the fire. Misty was somewhere beyond the firelight, laughing again. “Stop it!” she said, but it didn’t sound like she meant it. Everyone was fed and mellow. Danny made an effort to pick up the empties and the other trash, but he couldn’t see much beyond the ring of light from the fire, and he soon gave up. Danny had no trouble dropping cross-legged in the sand.
Chris pulled his cooler closer to the fire to be with the others. Their faces wavered before him in the flickering light, so different from the steady glare of the fluorescent lights at the office. He closed his eyes.
“This float trip was a great idea, Danny,” Mackie said.
Chris figured he should have said that. He was supposed to be their boss.
Everyone agreed with Mackie. Danny bobbed his head in acknowledgement, and then they let a genial silence fall among them again.
After a while, Danny said that if no one was going to eat the remaining steaks on the grill, they’d have to throw them in the river. Otherwise they’d have raccoons visiting the camp that night.
“Then by all means, throw them in the river,” said Martha.
No one got up to do it, though. Tired and half drunk and comfortable, they all leaned back and let the silence enwrap them.
After a sufficient time, Chris pushed up from the cooler. “I’ll do it.”
There were five steaks left. They had been moved to the edge of the grill where they wouldn’t burn, but even so, they felt dry and crispy. He stumbled through the sand toward where he thought the river was, and when he got past the tents and the ring of fire light, he began tearing bites from one of the steaks. His prize for coming in last. The edge was burned and crunched in his teeth, but he spit that first piece out and tried again, finding better meat in the center. By the time he got to the water, he had eaten as much of the first steak as he could find in the darkness and started on the second one. He ate all that he could from the five then threw the bones into the darkness, listening for their splash each time. He bent toward the water with a grunt and rinsed his hands, drying them on his pants, then he turned toward camp, using the fire has his beacon.
Still beyond the light himself, he could see several faces painted with the orange glow from the fire.
“Did you see how high his bow was above the water?” Mackie said.
“I started laughing when I looked back and saw it!” That was Eric. Chris wasn’t surprised.
“I think he walked more miles than he floated.”
“Stop it you two,” said Martha. “You’re drunk. Don’t be so mean. Chris is a good person.”
“Yeah, he’s a good guy,” Mackie conceded, and then they fell silent.
Chris let the quiet collect before he stumbled toward the fire.
“Hey, welcome back,” said Mackie quickly. “What took you so long?”
“Too much beer.” That raised a chuckle.
Before taking his seat on the cooler again, he opened it and pulled out a beer. “Anyone?”
A few hands raised, and he began tossing cans. Only Danny caught his. The others thudded into the sand, but they were opened without too much mess or complaint.
Another bag of chips made the rounds. Kim suggested making s’mores, but no one had the energy to bother. The conversations dissolved to sporadic murmurings. A few more beers and Chris was ready for bed.
“How far to the take out point tomorrow?”
“Not far. Less than five miles, I think,” said Danny. “A couple hours.”
“Well, I’m going to bed. See all of you in the morning. We’ll skip our regular staff meeting.”
That raised a laugh too, and with a last wave, he turned from the group to go find his tent. The flashlight he should have been carrying was rolled up with his dry clothes and the cookies. He knew he was close when he tripped over the extra gear he’d removed from his canoe. Someone hadn’t set up their tent yet, and he was glad it wasn’t him. They were all too drunk by then to manage something that complicated, especially in the dark.
He didn’t want to climb into his tent wearing his sandy, wet sneakers, but he worried that if he left them outside, some animal would carry them off in the night, so he tumbled into the tent and zipped the door shut behind him. He’d clean it in the morning.
Taking off his dirty sneakers. Peeling off his wet socks. Drying his feet. Pulling on dry socks over his ragged toenails. All of this was close to impossible for Chris because he could barely reach his feet as he sat on the tent floor, and after he managed each step, he fell onto his back and gasped for air. The sand beneath the tent yielded with each fall, and by the time he was finished, a crater formed where his head had struck.
He expected to have a bad night, waking every twenty minutes feeling like he was suffocating, because he would be. He’d gasp for air in a panic then try to relax so he could fall asleep and do it again in another twenty minutes. It was like that whenever he tried to sleep without his CPAP, but his doctor said that if he just lost a hundred pounds, he wouldn’t need the machine at all. More like a hundred and fifty pounds, Chris knew.
He pulled the sleeping bag over his shoulder and rolled on his side, hoping he was tired enough or drunk enough to fall asleep quickly. He tried not to remember the things they said about him around the fire. Things they were probably still saying.

+ + +

He was the first in the camp to wake in the morning. It was pointless to keep trying to fall asleep only to wake up in a panic soon after. Once he saw the first hint of dawn through the fabric of his tent, he figured his punishment was sufficiently over; a different punishment replaced it. His arms and shoulders ached. He could barely move his fingers. His hands were claws, and he never wanted to hold a paddle again. His head pounded, but that was normal, an old friend come for a visit.
As he moved, his muscles began to loosen, and by the time he pulled his sandy sneakers on, he thought he might make it through the morning.
Outside, no one else was awake. The campfire, farther away than he realized, sent a reluctant string of white smoke into the air. At his feet was what he had tripped over in the dark. Someone hadn’t set up their tent after all, and before he could consider the implications of that, he knew he had to get something to eat.
He guessed one of the coolers had breakfast in it, but he didn’t remember seeing anything when he had dug in them the night before. Plus he was reluctant to raid the supplies and be caught stuffing his face with everyone else’s food.
On the ground by the fire he found a box of graham crackers half eaten. Beside it was a open bag of marshmallows that were dusted with sand. If there had been any chocolate bars for the s’mores, they were all gone. Or maybe hidden in someone’s tent.
A pair of crows passed silently over the island. Those early birds were out to get the worm, he guessed, and so was he. He took his same seat on the cooler. Then he picked up the box of graham crackers and began shoving them in his mouth as fast as he could. When they were gone, he put the box on the coals, willing it to flare up and destroy the evidence. Then he took the marshmallows out of the bag one by one and dusted off the sand before popping each into his mouth. They were awful, but he was hungry. When he was finished, he twisted the marshmallow bag into a tight ball and shoved it deep in the sand. Danny wouldn’t approve, but he didn’t have to know. He rose from the cooler and opened it. After briefly considering a beer, he opened a can of pop and washed down his dry and sticky breakfast. That would hold him until his real breakfast, and he worried that would not be for a long time while everyone slept off their hangovers.
The sun was inching over the trees down river. Soon it would hit the tents directly, and maybe then some of them would stir.
He sat on the cooler and tried not to think about how much he hated his life. They all thought he was a nice guy, easy to get along with, not a difficult boss. At least not yet. He was amazed that nobody could see how miserable he was, how terrible everything really was. Every day, waking with a shriek of recognition. Every day another struggle. Every day the same struggle. He was the same man he had been the day before, and he had to live the same wretched life he had the day before. He worked. He paid his bills. He saved a little. Sometimes he went to the movies, but he hated going alone. He got carry out all the time, except when he had pizza delivered. Even so, his grocery bill was big enough for a family. He hated climbing the stairs to his second floor apartment. He hated the way his seat belt barely reached the buckle and the steering wheel rubbed his stomach even with the seat back as far as he dared. He hated dropping anything on the floor because he could scarcely bend over enough to reach it. His knees were starting to hurt. His feet had always hurt. He hated all of those things, but he hated himself most of all. Something had to change, and nothing ever did.
He wiped his eyes then pushed himself up from the cooler. Maybe by the time he had his tent down and his gear stowed in his canoe, someone would have breakfast started. He walked to his tent, his ankles twisting in the sand. His life was no life.
It was when he had his tent down, rolled and ready to be slipped into its bag that he saw it. There, right where his tent had been, close to the canoes where everyone would be returning, was an impression of his bulk in the sand. Negative space showing just how much space he claimed, twice his share of the world. He could make out where his shoulder had pressed in, where his hips were, and a circular crater between them that was most of the rest of him. There was the truest summation his life for all of them to see.
He looked toward the other tents. No one was stirring. He fell to his knees with a thud and started scattering the sand with his hands. He pushed it around and dug deep holes where there weren’t any before. He jabbed the sand with a piece of driftwood and pounded it with his fists, silently screaming all the while. And when he was done and had erased all sign of himself, he zipped open the pocket on his vest where he had his two remaining candy bars. He shoved them into one of the holes he had dug and covered them with sand.
Then he fell to his side, exhausted. “No more. I have to change!”
After a while, he pushed himself up from the sand and finished packing. He stowed the gear in his canoe but didn’t tie it down because he knew he’d have other gear to carry.
Over at the fire he saw Danny poking the coals. Martha was working the tabs off the beer cans scattered around. Neither looked too happy to be alive, but at least they were finally up. Chris wandered over, trying not to seem eager.
“So I figured if I could reduce everything by one quarter,” Danny was saying to Martha, “my whole pack would weigh less. Look at each item and find a way to trim the weight. I cut half the handle off my toothbrush, for example. And that’s how I travel light. By an accumulation of little things.”
“Good morning, fearless leader,” Martha said as Chris stumbled up.
Danny picked up one of the dry bags that Chris had carried in his canoe the day before. “Breakfast is ready.”
From inside he pulled out several boxes of glazed donuts. How they had survived the journey without getting smashed Chris did not know. Danny opened the boxes and set them on the coolers beside the fire.
“There are enough for six donuts apiece, but I only want two, so you can have my other four,” he told Chris.
Sticky, messy glazed donuts. The very worst thing. Chris grabbed a box and didn’t stop eating them until they were all gone.

]]>http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/travel-light/feed/0Junkie Lusthttp://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/junkie-lust/
http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/junkie-lust/#commentsSun, 15 Sep 2013 16:09:15 +0000http://www.pendulinepress.com/?post_type=author_article&p=2912
For a while I saw him around the Mile End. Scanning the streets for cigarette butts and coin. He was a junkie. We had a lot of them. A neighborhood bar was the supplier. Everyone knew, but nothing was done about it. Payoffs. He had a good bicycle – probably lifted – and always looked dirty and ragged. He was young, maybe twenty years my junior – sported a bandana, tall, lean and possessed fine chiseled features. Good stock gone badly. Tasty. I fancied him.
He didn’t notice me and I never saw him panhandling. The street was his dig, dusting treasures like an archeologist. Tucking them away in his pockets for safekeeping. Occasionally I saw him squeegee, non-aggressive and proud. My flat was near up a tree-lined avenue with groomed gardens in every yard, where people hang on their stoops and wrought-iron balconies draped in flowers and vine. They don’t miss a thing, like a one-street town, a sheriff on every block.
I thought about how I’d approach him. Offer him money. Go back a few times – start up a conversation. Inquire if he’d care for a shower and meal. Devour him. Get him past the nosy neighbors. Confine him. He wouldn’t be attracted to my loose flesh and furrowed brow. Veins etched over my legs. Somber hollows under my eyes. Maybe he’d take a hit before we started? Travel a hot tunnel. Be somewhere far away. I saw him in the park waiting for his dealer. Jerking about like a spear fisherman. Scouting the sod and sidewalk for prey. The sun bounced off his torso. His jawline eclipsed. I headed over and handed him a large bill.
]]>http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/junkie-lust/feed/0Me Sestinahttp://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/me-sestina/
http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/me-sestina/#commentsSun, 15 Sep 2013 15:41:42 +0000http://www.pendulinepress.com/?post_type=author_article&p=2860
It has been suggested to me
That I am self-centered and oblivious to others. They hint at me,
These others I am supposedly oblivious to, that ‘me’
Is the first priority of me.
Which isn’t fair. If you ask me
I’d say, personally, that they just don’t like me

Simply because they are jealous of me.
It’s no big deal to me.
I understand, really, that what they dislike in me
Is really only what they lack in themselves. By putting me
Down, they can place themselves higher than me
And think themselves better than me

While all the time they really wish they were me
Or somebody just like me
Or …they wish they could at least feel how it is to be me:
To not be envious of, or threatened by, me
But just be happy to be me.
I can’t let what they think get to me

Because that sort of thing could really get to me—
I mean, who needs to know what they’d tell me.
I get enough though hints made for me
To decipher, or to figure out, when they are near me
Or near enough for me
To overhear them talk about me

The way they do. I know what they think about me,
And, if it was up to me
I’d keep them away from me.
I don’t need them around me
All they do is bring me
Down. They are, in all actuality, toxic to me

And to themselves. It saddens me
Really, and there’s a part of me
That wants to help them out. To say “Listen to me,
Come on, I understand you. Let me
Help you get over this. It’s not me
That’s the problem here, it’s you…” But, the truth is, me

Saying anything to them about me that could help them see how they react to me
Is not going to happen. I’m me, they are them. We—me
And them—can’t reconcile. They’re jealous of me, they will never be like me.

Exertion

Exertion, suicide of the mind
putting forth effort, momentary discomfort
breeding fruit flies in a plastic cup.
How much longer can I hold it?
gratification is calling.
Under the bridge
runs cool water of lethargy.
Dreams of December
rebirth of the poetic mind
freedom from analysis
scrutiny, probing, probing
a fractured psyche.
Id comes alive
waves hit my eyes
waves of wasted hours
happiness and sweaty palms
stroking a pair of plastic cocks
dead skin encrusted in folds and veins
untouched for months
now warm, cooling, cooling
waiting for me to awaken
and never sleep
never dream of her brown hair
cascading over my chest
my dick sliding in and out of her
ah, ah, ah, ah, she says
I smile and grab her ass
thrusting harder, harder, harder don’t stop
I’m done, lie down for awhile
nude, happy, content
but not now.
Now I must exert myself
in ways I can’t cum to
ways, paths, alleys full of suicide windows
feral cats, rabies, scabies, disease and fecal rot.
I smelled death at a Taco Bell
it was on my breath the night of epiphany
1938 resurrected, tape recorder from Norway
The sound of knives chopping celery or human bones.

Baal’s Buffet

Walking up the stairs, I trip on my own brain stem.
Passionate cries from the closet cradle my broken pieces.
I’ve eaten and gorged and scarfed to satiation
But no amount of satisfaction could have saved me
From sweating bullets at noontime
Under heat lamps of radioactive frustration.
Castrated on the table at birth I was
But my foreskin remained intact.
I knew someday the tears would go away
But after the fact I’d return.
Back for more
A third plate of feast
A buffet of indulgence in the hypothalamus of the beast.

A Woman Whose Eyes I Didn’t Notice

Words seep out of my pen like pre-ejaculate
And pus from the urethral stricture
That has made me piss sideways for the past four years
The result of unloading loveless lumps of cum into a birth canal
Attached to a woman whose eyes I didn’t notice
Were detaching themselves from me
And my half-serious jokes about niggers
And my half-paranoid plans to keep her from leaving
To keep myself from realizing that her only purpose was to take my virginity
And that the public displays of titty grabbing, neck nuzzling, loin stroking
And groin fondling had run their course
To keep myself under the papier-mâché umbrella I had constructed
A wasp’s nest bursting forth with chitinous yellow demons
To sting the back of my psyche
Every time the matter-of-fact reared its head
Mandibles glistening with period blood
The blood missing from her pad the day we realized we had made a mistake
All because the pressure of the condom against my malformed urethra
Made urination an experience akin to a cat’s claw slicing my penis from base to tip
Not a far distance considering my dick is the size of an acorn
She even said so in her “goodbye, fuck you!” letter
Still somehow saved in the archives of Facebook
For me to read if I ever felt like gouging my eyes out with the tools they used
To silence the beating heart of the one who might have succeeded
In doing what I failed to do my entire life.

]]>http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/exertion-baals-buffet-a-woman-whose-eyes-i-didnt-notice/feed/0Bag Manhttp://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/bag-man/
http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/bag-man/#commentsSun, 15 Sep 2013 15:01:55 +0000http://www.pendulinepress.com/?post_type=author_article&p=2915
Joseph was checking out a woman. She was tall and stylish in a beige mini with matching heels. Her brown hair was done up in a bob that exposed small, round ears. Her pale skin was clean of makeup. This helped intensify the effect of her green eyes. She flashed them at Joseph as he arranged a box of soft tofu into a grocery bag.
“Can you put that in plastic?” she asked. “I know paper is better for the environment, but it will soak right through.”
Joseph did as asked. When finished packing her bags, he scanned the other cashiers to see if they had customers that needed his service. No one was busy and so he stayed put for the moment.
“Will you carry these to a cab for me?”
Joseph scooped up the bags and followed the women toward the door. Once at the curb, she looked left at the ongoing traffic and raised her arm.
“I’ve met you before,” the woman said, still focused on getting a cab. “Do you remember me?”
Joseph was not sure she was speaking to him. In the City it was common to see people talking to themselves, either because of some mental oddity or into a concealed mobile phone.
“We grew up in the same town,” she continued. “Went to the same high school.”
He still could not place her.
“Melony Harper,” she added, turning toward him and lowering her arm. “You were in class with my younger sister, Lauren.”
Joseph finally made the connection. He remembered Lauren to be attractive, smart and funny, exactly the type of girl that intimidated him. He hardly ever spoke to her growing up.
“She’s still home,” Melony continued. “Getting married, if you can believe.”
Joseph nodded. He did not like being too long away from the register, did not want to upset the manager and risk a bad review at the end of the month, something that would be sent to his current caretakers – his parole officer, the manager of the halfway house, his court-appointed mental health counselor. It was not admonishment that concerned him, but attention. Basically, all he wanted from the job was the paycheck, all he wanted from the halfway house was the bed, and all he wanted from the supervisors in his life were signatures on the documents that keep him out of prison
“What about you?”
“Excuse me?”
“How long have you been here?”
Joseph knew to the minute how long, as his move to the City coincided with his release from jail. It had been exactly 45 days since he was processed out and placed in the home. Still, he shrugged his shoulders as if unsure.
“I’ve been here about two years,” Melony said. “But it seems like forever.”
Joseph couldn’t wait any longer. He stepped forward, and hugging the groceries to his chest, managed to raise his right arm and flag down a taxi.
Melony opened the cab door and slipped inside. She took the groceries from Joseph and smiled again.
“We should have coffee sometime,” she said, “talk some more about home.”
With that she closed the door and the cab moved back into traffic.

+ + +

The manager didn’t reprimand him, but still it was an unpleasant evening for Joseph. There was a stirring inside him that altered the way he had felt since leaving prison. He had been living in a state of ambivalence, a cocoon of uncaring that kept him moored to the program set out for ex-convicts, allowed him not to question the path of mediocrity he was expected to travel, not to complain about the decrepit environs, the sinful wages, the crushing isolation of the societal miscast. That night, however, he longed for more: a nicer room, new clothes, money in his pocket…a woman in his bed.
Work was hectic the next day. A sale on vegetable oil drew in a slew of food cart vendors. Bagging the oil wore him out, and with relief he took his first break and went outside for a smoke. There, to his surprise, he saw Melony.
“You too,” she said in greeting, exhaling gray fumes through her nostrils. “I thought I was the only one left who smoked.”
Joseph blushed, suddenly aware he was holding a dingy plastic lighter and a cheap pack of cigarettes. Before prison he smoked Dunhill International Lights. What he liked most was the packaging, the square, sophisticated shape of the box, the slick red and egg-shell white coloring, the neat script across the top and the gold inlay, like holiday gift paper. But a carton of Dunhill’s would devour his pay, and so now he smoked Winstons, which came in a dank-looking pack encased in flimsy plastic.
Joseph extracted a stick and stuffed the pack back into his pocket. He lit it fast and secreted away the lighter.
“It’s nice out today,” Melony said. “But I heard it might rain later.”
Joseph dragged hard on his cigarette.
“I don’t mind rain,” she continued. “It doesn’t make me feel guilty to stay in bed all morning.”
She worked on her own cigarette a moment, and then added: “I like to sleep late.”
Joseph inhaled deeper, willing the lit end to draw closer to his lips.
“I was going to see if you have time for a coffee,” Melony said, dropping her cigarette to the pavement and grinding it out with the heel of her shoe. “I mean, after your shift.”
Joseph cringed. He hated the word – shift. Only poor people worked “shifts.”
“It’s okay if you’re too busy. I’ll understand.”
He was not busy. And the idea of having coffee with Melony, any beautiful woman, thrilled him. Not because of sexual interest, but more for the attention it brought him, the refracted glory, the envy he perceived in the eyes of other men when he used to stroll into a restaurant or club with a comely companion, or at least the envy he craved – or once craved, before prison humbled him, made him see himself as he really was, his two years incarcerated serving as a giant mirror pressed to his face, forcing him to examine up close his imperfections, but instead of blackheads and scars, wrinkle lines and ingrown hairs, he saw fear and weakness, indecision and insecurity, a man without purpose or identity, a man stripped of his mask, a façade erected out of bluster and bravado, ruthless largesse, abject greed…and stolen credit cards.
“I can.”
The two words, or the suddenness of his answer, seemed to startle Melony. She made a move for another cigarette, fumbling with the pack as she pulled it out from the handbag over her shoulder.
“That’s great,” she said. “What time?”
Joseph was surprised he had accepted her invitation. It felt almost as if someone other than him had said it. But now he had to think quickly. He got off at eight but had to be inside the halfway house by 10 each night. Off all the rules at the house, and there were many, this was impressed upon him from the start as the most essential to maintain. If broken once, it meant a reprimand, a call to the Parole Officer, and a note in the file. If it was broken twice, it meant expulsion from the house and, possibly, a return to prison. Joseph had already broken curfew once, in a strange act of rebellion even he didn’t quite understand, when one night during that first week at the house he purposely stayed outside the house, alone and around the corner smoking his cheap cigarettes, waiting until exactly one minute past 10 to knock on the locked door and take his punishment. He was determined to not let any more urges, conscious or subconscious, jeopardize his freedom. He did not want to go back to jail.
“How about we meet right after eight,” he finally said, trying to project a casual unconcern about time.
“That works for me.”
Melony finally got a firm hold on another cigarette and lit it.
“Do you have a favorite coffee place,” she said, pushing smoke out of the side of her mouth.
Joseph didn’t. He took his first cup at the halfway house, and the rest inside the market while he worked.
“If not, I can suggest something.”
Joseph glanced around. To his left, less than a block away, he saw chairs set out front on the sidewalk and people sitting in them sipping from cups.
“That’s where I usually go,” he lied, indicating the spot with a nudge of his chin.
“Cool,” Melony said, blowing more smoke into the heavy air. “So I’ll meet you there at 8.”
Joseph affirmed the plan with a nod, and after Melony left he returned to the store, where he waited at the end of Lane Five for the mid-day crush.

+ + +

The café was dainty looking: the interior was painted bright yellow, with streams of purple paisley stripping the top and bottom walls. The chairs and tables were tiny, more suited for children than adults. By contrast, the earthenware cups they provided for the coffee were huge, like soup bowls. Joseph picked up his with two hands and took a hard sip while Melony spoke.
“I don’t like coffee too hot,” she said, her breath causing the coffee in her cup to ripple. “I’m the same with food…or even showers.”
Melony tried a sip, but pulled back.
“Anyway,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “I feel so complicated lately. It’s like I crave simplicity, but I have no idea what that even means anymore. It used to be that I could wake up in the morning and plot out my whole day in one thought – pick my meals, where I was going to go, who I was going to meet, even what I was going to feel like. I’m sort of into visualization: if you can see it you can be it, that kind of thing. So if I woke up and saw myself smiling, I would smile. But lately, when I wake up, I have no idea what I want to feel, and so I spend the day going from one feeling to another, which wouldn’t be bad if most of them were positive. Does that make sense to you?”
Joseph nodded.
“Good,” she breathed with relief. “I thought I was going crazy. I actually thought about going to a psychologist, but they cost a lot of money and I don’t have insurance. Besides, from what I hear, the only thing they do is medicate people, and I hate medication. I won’t even take a vitamin.”
Joseph took a sip of his coffee. It tasted oddly sweet, but it packed a caffeine punch. In prison, the coffee was watered down and weak, probably because they didn’t want to give the inmates any more reason to feel edgy or over-stimulated.
“I think it comes from my father,” Melony continued. “He’s very rigid when it comes to what goes into his body. It drives my mother crazy, because she likes to cook with fat. I’m not lying. She makes bacon every morning, and saves the grease and uses it the rest of the day. She even smears bacon fat on peanut butter sandwiches.”
Melony wrinkled her nose and smiled.
“Do you ever miss it…being home?”
Joseph eyed a clock facing him on the back wall. It was now just past 8:30. He figured another half hour and he’d leave, putting him back at the house in time to have a last smoke before curfew.
“I guess…sometimes.”
“I’m the same,” Melony said. “Like when I’m mad, or down, nothing in this City looks good. But when I’m happy, everything is gorgeous. I can see the worst thing, the saddest thing, like a homeless person in the rain, and if I’m happy, I’ll find something nice about the scene. Like maybe the homeless person is making a conscious choice to be on the streets; that they want to be free and not tied down by any big money needs, like paying for rent.”
Melony paused, shot a sad look into her coffee cup.
“I don’t think I told you, but I came here in the first place to work for a friend who opened up a vintage dress shop. No one bought the dresses and the store’s closing.”
Melony looked up.
“Are they hiring at your market?”
Joseph blushed, embarrassed to be reminded of his menial job.
“I’m just joking,” Melony spoke into his silence. “I’m sure it a great place to work, but I think the best thing for me is to go home and lick my wounds. Or at least swallow my pride. That’s my biggest problem: I have too much integrity. I can’t stand dishonesty or anyone who is a phony. It’s not a good trait for retail sales.”
Melony finished her coffee and rose with the cup in her hand.
“Can I get you a refill?”
Joseph could have gone for another, but did not want her to buy it for him.
“I’ve had enough.”
“Okay,” she said, “I’ll be right back.”
But there was a line at the counter, and by the time Melony returned it was nine o’clock.
“Sorry it took so long.”
Joseph thought how to best make his exit without being rude or looking like he had to be somewhere. He was about to tell her that he had promised to meet another friend at another place when she added: “But I’m happy to see places making money. It was really sad about the store I worked. Do you mind if I tell you about it? I really haven’t had a chance to talk to anyone about what happened.”
Joseph gave another look at the clock. He guessed he could wait another five minutes and still make the door. But the cigarette was out. He’d have to risk smoking it in the room, another violation and call to his probation officer if caught.
“Sure,” he said.
With that, Melony began talking. First, she told him about the store; how excited she was to get the job, how she thought the vintage clothes and accessories – ‘hippie, bell-bottom jeans and lots of funky beads’ – would sell well, and how this excitement, this hope, was tamped down little by little each day, as fewer and fewer customers came through the door, and even fewer, once entering, actually purchased something. Soon it became apparent the place would have to close, and with it the end of her job, but she could not find the energy to start over, to search for a new position, to go through the whole process again of finding an ‘employment partner,’ as she called it, telling him that she never wanted to just ‘work somewhere just to work,’ but to actually care about the business, the products, the people involved.
By the time she finished talking about the store, the five minutes Joseph had allocated to the endeavor had become nearly ten. Now, if he was to make the door, he would have to excuse himself immediately, rush from the table, sprint to the subway, hope a train was coming, hope it would make all the connections without pause, and then, if he ran hard from the station to the house, he might, barely, make it.
But he stayed. Listening and eyeing the ticking clock as Melony switched topics at random, often with no natural break or segue to warrant a change in subject, speaking for one moment about her love of lemon ices to watching a documentary on the wildlife channel about Greenland sharks. She also told him about her favorite flower – “Lilies, because their stems curl forward like a giraffe drinking water” – and her most hated, black-eyed Susans, only because her last boyfriend cheated on her with a woman named Susan and she was not yet ready “to forgive him or her.”
By now it was nearly 10:30, and a worker at the café was mopping up the floor. Melony had gotten a third cup, and Joseph, resigned now to his fate, had allowed her to get him a refill as well.
“I guess we’re closing the place,” she said, laughing.
Joseph’s mind was stuck on the closed door of the half-way house, his empty bed, the whispers among the other residents about his absence, the head of the place angrily filling out the report, making a note to call Joseph’s parole office in the morning.
“You know…” Melony’s expression changed, the set of her mouth and eyes sticking somewhere between concern and compassion, “I know you were in jail. I hope it’s okay for me to tell you, but I don’t want you to think you need to hide it from me. And you don’t have to tell me anything about it. I talk a lot, but I also know that it’s good sometimes to keep things in. Sometimes it’s better to let a hurt keep hurting until it doesn’t hurt anymore.”
Joseph was not embarrassed by what Melony said. Before jail, if anyone, especially a woman, hinted at anything about his character or past that was not positive, he would react with a manic flurry of words to prove them wrong. But now, sitting in the closing café with a last cup of coffee, he really, truly, absolutely, did not care what she felt or thought about him. The feeling was liberating, and buoyed by it he stood.
“I got to go,” he said.
Melony’s face fell.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up. I upset you,”
“Far from it. I just got to get back to the half-way house,” he said, slipping into the pseudo-tough tone of voice he had adopted in prison. “I’m late as it is.”
“Oh.”
Joseph pulled out his wallet and opened it. He had inside a ten-dollar bill and three ones – the rest of his money until payday. He pushed onto the table the ten.
“For the tip,” he said.
Melony seemed confused.
“You really got to go right now?”
“Yes.”
“I’m here another few days,” she said, fast. “Maybe we can do this again.”
Joseph was already moving past the table. His idea was to walk the streets a bit, maybe hit a few bars – not to drink, but to check out the customers, the drunk ones, the ones who absently left billfolds on the counter, credit cards and slips. He would stay out until dawn, and then head back to the halfway house. He had heard rumors that the manager of the house could be bribed to look the other way now and again. He would try to find out. With luck he would avoid be written up, could take a quick nap, and then a shower and shave, and back to the market. Lots of credit card slips there, he thought.
“So maybe I’ll stop by tomorrow afternoon,” Melony continued, “to see if you want to meet up.”
Joseph turned and shot her a smile, one he hadn’t used since before prison.
“Sure,” he said. But this time we’ll go out for real: nice restaurant, drinks, music and dancing…” He patted the wallet in his hand. “My treat.”
“Are you sure? It sounds expensive.”
Joseph winked again. He felt alive, happy for the first time in years, really.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “it’s only money.”

]]>http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/bag-man/feed/0Sweet Hashhttp://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/sweet-hash/
http://www.pendulinepress.com/author-article-archives/sweet-hash/#commentsSun, 15 Sep 2013 14:45:26 +0000http://www.pendulinepress.com/?post_type=author_article&p=2955Delicioso! Did you read the op-ed about him in Parents? ]]>
Josh and Hailey pop a bottle of sparkling rosé; they are so proud of their three-day-old boy—Theodore hardly cried during circumcision—and now, finally home at 10am, Josh silently toasts to his little protégé.
Someday, he muses, Theo will wear pinstripe suits and cordovan shoes, manage a lucrative telephone sales office, collect complicated timepieces—the kind that track the phases of the moon; he’ll donate to all the big charities, order his steaks rare, with a side of vegetables, not potatoes; he’ll appreciate single malts, cigars, flying small planes. Maybe, he’ll be a pioneer in interstellar tourism, vacation in the valleys of Neptune, have threesomes in zero-gravity. Theo will be rich, successful, acclaimed; his glass will never be empty.
Hailey doesn’t care for champagne. Bubbly upsets her stomach; alcohol spoils breast milk. She pretends to sip from her crystal flute, letting the fizz fall onto her upper lip. She sets her glass down, stares at rain drops snaking across the sun room window, feeling the bubbly snake into her mouth too. What she wants is her little man’s love and trust. Theo will be grounded, attuned to popular culture, in love with Disney movies, free of chlamydia and crabs. Hailey has purchased things to ensure this: an iPod and iPad, both loaded with cartoons and classical music; a newborn interaction camp membership, which instills healthy relationship management; the very best in child health insurance and playground safety gear, which will ensure he receives all those proper vaccinations and stays cooties free. He will be her prince, live happily ever after, make some girl feel safe and accounted for.
Hailey is prepared to purchase more things, too. Whatever Theo needs, he will get: a Gucci diaper bag, a navy Bugaboo Stroller, a white Nissan Murano. Theo will be pampered, stress free. Hailey’s breasts will be perky Mattel chalices; her milk will be untainted, organic, infused with the placenta she brought home from the hospital in that tacky Styrofoam container.
Though Hailey planned on encapsulating the placenta, the girls at the tennis club have dared her to do otherwise. Smoke it; make it into a pizza, a Bloody Mary, a sweet hash. Apparently, the internet is teeming with placenta recipes, and there’s a chef, you know? Something Wen Lee. He specializes in this kind of thing, comes to your house and everything. Delicioso! Did you read the op-ed about him in Parents? He’s a fox, a hound, a real catch and release situation, hung for a China man, Korean, whatever. His ching-chang-chong will make you break like a real fortune cookie. But Hailey wants to be graceful, not so desperate, not just another unfaithful tennis housewife, and, besides, we have a nanny, Lupita; she’s a fantastic cook, so simple, so ethnic! You should see the way she pencils in her eyebrows. Her parents came over on a raft or something. Isn’t that just the nitty-gritty?
Lupita is staying in the maid’s room; there are two rules she must comply with: keep your door open during the day and keep your religious beliefs to yourself. Her request to hang a gilded crucifix over the bed was hardly tolerated; it transformed that chic, modern space into a baroque broom closet, but Hailey doesn’t mind for the moment; she is willing to see past Lupe’s faith. After all, Lupe will get the dirt under her fingernails, make Theo bilingual, but Lupe is forbidden, verboten, vedado to worship saints at their home or in her own bed; she can worship Jesus, of course, bathe in his love and charity, but serpents are not welcome in the nursery; religious candles must be lit elsewhere: en otro lado. Otro lado, por favor. Por favor, Lupe. Josué no lo quiere.
In a lemon-colored nursery, emblazoned with zebra astronauts and lion rocket ships, Theo breathes. He watches Neptune clumsily eclipse Jupiter. He listens to A Space Oddity Lullaby on repeat. Overcome with exhaustion, Theo sleeps, only momentarily awakened by the rush of a warmth between his legs. The wetness is so familiar, so belonging.
Theo is lathered in moisturizer, but he feels the air drying him out; he misses the warm, wet, pitter patter of being lodged inside that place where his mother’s bowel movements were soft percussionist back rubs, whooshing alongside his body. Now, everything hurts; he feels so immobile, so clumsy. His nursery room overlooks Lake Michigan, but he can’t lift his head to see it or the sailboats or the cars that grind their brakes in traffic below―a sound that makes the roots of Theo’s eardrums convulse.
Though Theo’s eyes are shut, he senses the sun rising over the cusp of his bassinet, nictitating through the wicker lattice. Clouds stream over Chicago, making the sun seem like a slow burning strobe light. Theo is fascinated by the light―he’s closer to it now than he was in the womb—but there are so many shades of black and white, so many shapes, so he doesn’t cry; he opens his eyes and stares, trying to make sense of all that illumination.
Lupita caresses Theo’s legs, places a glass of water beneath his bassinet, smiles, whispers sweet nothings in Spanish. Sparkling waves wash ashore on Oak Street Beach. People walk their dogs on a rosy surf. Navy Pier’s Ferris wheel gleams against the skyline; the shimmer of a pregnant woman at the top of the wheel smiles and points at the sun. Theo spits up and smiles too, reaching for a finger to squeeze.

+ + +

The rosé is cashed by noon, so Josh uncorks a bottle of Macallen 25, pours two sunny fingers into a gold rimmed tumbler; it’s not often that he has time off, let alone a week. The caramel and floral notes and full body of the scotch will complement the nanny’s sweet hash. Already garlic, oil, and the scent of seared blood encroach the dining room.
Lupita cares for the stove top, a white apron draped over her denim house dress. She has short oily curls that bounce above her stylized eyebrows and long gold hoop earrings that make her ears droop. She looks back into the dining room, ears jiggling: “Five minutes brunch, family.”
In the living room, Josh props a pillow under his legs and reclines on the chaise.
“Honey, don’t you want to hold him?” Hailey asks, her breast exposed; her nipple is dark, erect; her areola has spread like a cancerous mole. Hailey tries to find the most comfortable way to feed Theo, moving him from one forearm to another. “I think I’m supposed to lactate when he cries,” she says.
“Does this make us cannibals now?” Josh asks, gyrating his tumbler.
“The cloth, Hon.”
“I mean, what if we really like the placenta? Who will we eat next?”
Hailey snatches the cloth off the ottoman: “Please. Placentas aren’t people.”
“And who’s ever heard of such a thing? So unnatural, so barbaric.”
“Animals have heard of it because they do it.”
“Oh, yeah? What kind of animals?”
“Like Apes. Apes do it.”
“Figures. Freaking Monkeys.”
Though Theo doesn’t have teeth, he can apply enough pressure on Hailey’s nipple to make her cringe, but she feels connected now; Theo is her little vampire, still sucking the life out of her. In the iridescence of Theo’s eyes, Hailey sees the man he will become: a good father, a compassionate husband, a considerate child, decent in the playground. She can feel the tissue in her breasts throbbing, pushing and pulling, but it hurts; it burns, and though she seems to purge milk, she fears that her mammary glands are all powder and mucus. Give him my milk, she prays. Oh, Jesus. Let me lactate until he is strong. Let me be a fondue fountain of motherhood.
“You think Lupita’s parents ate her placenta? Ask her. I dare you.”
“She can hear you.”
“Lupita. Do you eat placentas in your chimichangas?”
“Don’t be a jerk. Ignore him, Lupe.”
Lupe doesn’t respond, staring only at the grease and browned potatoes, infused with rosemary, even though she knows: Mr. Josue true. Devils and brujas eat their own. Maybe Hailey needs spend more time with being mom, less time being tennis bruja.
In end, nannies must be nannies. She has done what she needed to. Always side with child, Lupe believes. Parents too material, too distracted, which is how she switched the placenta with higado de puerco in the first place: so similar, still tasty. Also, she believes “placenta” is such dirty word; birth pouches, sacks, must be buried to ensure safety, salvation. How else will saints call for Theo? Sacks not just pieces of carne to eat; lost sibling, forgotten afterbirth, a child’s first mirror, bruised, soft, shimmering.
In Lupe’s country, birth sacks filled with holy water, rose petals, caramels; ripped flaps sown, threaded in white silk; good life, good soul forever. Mothers wrap placentas in white linen; beautiful day. Beautiful night. People are music. People are dance. People are poetry. They hand bundle to priestesses. Priestess goes to beach at night with turtles. She digs hole along surf. The birth sack buried, so is a rosary, topped with bed of green palm leaves to protect from cangrejos. One white candle burns above as offering—gesture to the saints for health and life. Flame must be high enough so waves not put it out, but low enough so devils do not see it.
Children who do not have birth sacks buried live short days. Their blood poisoned. Mold makes lungs into cottage cheese. The devil enters bones, makes hair fall out, poisons limbs, makes forgetful, blind, retarded. The devil makes little children join gang, gun violence, rape young woman, drown. Not happen right away, but happens. Always in America. It no wonder saints have shunned land. Now every man is devil, every dollar is fire, and the sun has made the Midwest a bowl of Wheaties.
Lupita shuts off the stove, sets the table with Hailey’s blue linens and spring china, careful to arrange the silverware to her liking. She places a cigar, a cutter, and a lighter next to Mr. Josué’s place setting. “Brunch ready, family,” she says. “Diced sweet papas, artichokes, bacon, placenta. Come now. Get it.”
Hailey hands off Theo, fixes her breast, and sits at the table.
“Nothing more?” Lupita asks, cradling Theo.
But Hailey’s mouth is already stuffed with hash, and she can only purr.
“Thank you,” Josh says. “Leave us for now.”

+ + +

Josh thinks the placenta was gamey, like reindeer or gator; he wants more, but considering how important it is to Hailey’s lactation, he backs off, pouring himself an aperitif, a pinch of grappa, and retiring to the media room where he will open a window and smoke his cigar. Now, he will watch back-to-back episodes of The Deadliest Catch, secretly wonder what it would be like to quit his job and move to Alaska. There would be no paperwork, no paper trails, just claws, fresh glacial air, and that one time in the year when supermodels unfold and undress on ice. But this is all fruitless thinking; Hailey wouldn’t move; she’s tied to the city, tied to the shops; it’s a symbiotic relationship. I mean, she buys so much crap, then she returns it, so she buys more, returns more. Is there even tennis in Alaska? Alaska might seem too desperate, too dangerous for Theo, and she would be right; Theo should be worried about Santa, not polar bears.
It’s hard for Josh to relax; there’s so much business on his mind. Turnover at the office has been especially high, commissions low. Consumers are simply not interested in continuing to pay for landlines, archaic things. Why should they? Cell phones, internet, Skype are changing the landscape, eating up all the telephone wires. It used to be everyone memorized a call number, a series of digits that meant home, but now every person is a name in a digital address book. God forbid an emergency, a disaster. God. Whose name will we select then when cell phone towers and electricity fail?
After the hash, Hailey retires to Theo’s room where she meets Lupe, who is softly swaying from one leg to another, singing to Theo in Spanish.
“What was it like?” Hailey asks.
Lupe is confused. “He is fine now, but crying early then.”
“I mean to cook the placenta.”
“Fine. You want me cook, I cook.”
“But was it too much? Was it too strange?”
“No good?” Lupe asks.
“It was good, surprisingly tasty.”
“Hold him, Señora.”
Hailey sits on a Belgian linen couch adorned with stuffed animals. An oval area rug, a series of stripes swirled like a suspended whirlpool, reminds Hailey of what it’s like to be out at sea: could she handle Theo on her own? If it was just she and Josh and Theo, would she be able to navigate, and what if another baby came? There are no other bedrooms; they would have to move, somewhere far away, hopefully—a city is no place to anchor a family.
While passing Theo over to Hailey, Lupe drops the burp cloth. Hailey takes Theo, but it’s when she crouches down to pick it up, that she notices the glass of water beneath his bassinet.
“Strange place to leave a glass of water, Lupe.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Glass of water. Strange. We talked about this. Really not fine.”
“No. I no sleep until nine. I have plans. I be back at night.”
“Oh really?”
“No funny business, Señora. No worries. No man. Just outing abouting.”
Theo is exhausted, but he likes being close to Mom. He wants to stay awake, but he’s burping and fading, yet he can sense something is wrong. His mom is anxious, nervous; he still can’t tell when he’s awake or dreaming and soon he’s back in that dark, warm place, weightless and swimming. There’s a cord connecting him to the placenta, and he’s tugging at it, kicking and punching at patches of rose colored light. Chopin’s Nocturne No. 2 in E Flat plays, muffled, though he doesn’t know what it is; each note is a viscous vibration, slowly accumulating, cluttering, making the womb shiver and tremble, making the womb drop. The shadows of hands sweep over his pool, which is now draining, and Theo sinks back into the dark, away from the light and sounds, until he’s up against flesh and bone.

+ + +

Shortly after 5pm, Josh wishes they had a butler too, someone who could prepare a sandwich and a stout for him—a nice cold black one to wash down the liquor. Theo is still sleeping when Josh enters the nursery. Hailey shushes Josh, whispers, “Look at our little guy.”
So Josh looks again, except now Josh is staring. He kisses Hailey’s forehead, rubs her hand. Theo trembles.
“He’ll be up soon,” Hailey whispers. “He must be dreaming.”
Josh mimes making a sandwich and pokes at Hailey. He pokes her again and kisses her.
She nods and silently enunciates “Thank you.”
Josh smiles. He is proud. He is a father. Crossing the condo, tiptoeing back to the kitchen, Josh notices the maid room door shut. He explicitly told Lupita to keep her door open.
He’s always been a curious guy, and he knows that Lupe won’t be back for some time, but he wants to be respectful, though he’s a little tipsy, and maybe he wants to know what she does in that little room all to herself, so he enters her space.
Her bed is made—white sheets. The night table is clear, except for what seems like an annotated Spanish gossip magazine. Seeing Jesus gilded and crucified over the bed is somehow comforting for Josh, though Jesus’ eyes follow him as he crosses the room; he is happy that at least someone in the condo has faith, but he’s seen movies too. These kinds of ethnic woman can practice the dark arts—Santería and Voodoo— and is there a dead spider behind that crucifix? Are there maggots living inside her pillow shams? Do locusts nest beneath her bed? Does she keep voodoo dolls in her armoire or the heads of chickens in her sock drawer?
Nope. None of that. But she does keep salted caramels on a wooden tray.
Josh is about to leave when he sees a pillow case is missing. There’s bloody thumb print on her down insert. It’s small, fresh, not yet browned and dried. He doesn’t want to know where the blood came from. Innocent, he thinks.
Not quite.
He opens her bathroom door, a small room with a half shower. The bathroom is clean, all black tile, except for the white sink. There’s pink ice in it, lots of it, and caramels and rose petals. A needle and white thread snakes along the edge of the sink.
Josh gets Hailey, mimes that she should come with him. Hailey shushes Josh, mimes that she is confused; she doesn’t think it would be appropriate for them to enter Lupita’s room, but Josh has already done it; he drags her in, so they stand in the bathroom, looking at the pink ice settling in the sink. Under the sink is the small tacky Styrofoam container, which the hospital provided to Josh and Hailey so they could transport the placenta; it’s hidden under a towel.
“I’m sure she can explain it.”
“Have you heard her speak English?”
“We really can’t do this without her. Not yet.”
“Really, Hailey. What kind of animal is this woman?”
“She’s Cuban or Mexican, I think.”
Theo cries from the nursery.
“I’ll check up on Theo,” Josh says. “You clean this mess.”
“You’re drunk,” Hailey says, touching his arm.
“I’m just feeling good. This is still a day to celebrate, isn’t it?”
“Should I suck on this ice?”
“Gross. Gross. Really Gross, Hailey. Don’t do that.”
“We need her, Josh. We really need her.”
“We never needed any of this,” Josh says, and he kisses Hailey’s forehead. “We will be fine. We will figure this out on our own. Theo will be immaculate. He will never remember this day. He will never see that animal again.”

+ + +

As the sun sets behind the Gold Coast, some units turn on their lights, which makes it seem like the sun shines through them. Dressed in a long brown coat, Lupita stumbles across the beach, watching the Ferris wheel lights dance in the reflection of the waves. All around Lupita, couples lay scattered about the beach. They are wrapped in blankets, making out, doing it, dancing, smoking hash. One police car patrols the lake path, occasionally using small search lights to peer past the lovers, unconcerned with all the romance.
Along the edge of the surf, Lupita sits, digs a hole with her hands as she used to when she was a child, making sandcastles along the shore. The sand is so cold, so rough against her skin. She isn’t a priestess; she doesn’t have holy water, but she knows right over wrong. When the hole is deep enough, she rolls the white pillow case into the hole. She quickly buries it, smoothing it over with sand. Spotlights search along the beach. At one moment, Lupita stares right into a searchlight, but it quickly moves beyond her.
A young couple dancing and kissing nearby play reggae.
“Perdon,” Lupe says. “What happened with policía?”
“Oh. Hey, vieja,” the young shirtless man says. “Don’t worry. Nothing happened today.”
“What happened then?”
“Apparently, they found a dead woman here yesterday.”
“Dead and pregnant,” the boy’s lady friend says, grinding up against him.
“Terrible thing,” the man says.
“Yes,” Lupita says. “Terrible terrible things.”
Lupita sits alone on the beach, the sound or reggae fading into the sounds of the waves. She lights a candle for Theo and for the poor woman, but the wind quickly blows the flames out. Looking up at the condo, she sees Theo’s lights are off; he’s asleep, dreaming. The lights in Lupe’s room, however, are on. She hadn’t left them on.
Inside Lupe’s bathroom, Hailey grabs handfuls of ice and dumps them into the toilet, taking only one cube of pink ice to suck on. Josh sits on the Belgian linen couch, rocking Theo in his arms.
Lupe trudges back to their condo, her shoes filled with sand. Theo, she muses, will be good kid. He will be strong, protected from mirrors and devils. When looking out window at black, black lake, he will feel safe, accounted for, even when seeing lightning strike lake. His prayers will be answered; he won’t know why, but he will know no suffering. He will not struggle when finding well paying job. He will find fertile woman with flowers in hair, and he will kiss her on that beach—her lips sweet as caramel, and this woman will never look after other people’s children; they will have their own. She will be strong, brown, round; she will only cook for her own family, and she will have milk, rivers and rivers of sweet milk.